Addresses in Honor of 

Prof. Francis A. March, LL.D., L.H.D, 






LAFAYETTE COLLEGE, 
October 24TH, 1895. 




FRANCIS A. MARCH, LL.D., L.H D. 



ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED AT 



A CELEBRATION IN HONOR OF 



Prof. Francis A. March, LLD., L.H.D. 



I^AFAYEmrK COI^I^BGB, 



OCTOBER 24th, 1895. 



EASTON, PA.: 

LAFAYETTE PRESS. 

1895. 






.^' 



By Tr~/ 5-fAf 
- > .9 



CONTENT'S. 

Preface 5 

Biographical Note. Prof. Francis A. March, Jr., Ph.D 11 

Introductory Remarks - 

Ex-President Wm. C. Cattell, D.D., lyly.D. 21 

Professor March's Work for Ivafayette 

Prof. Wm. B. Owen, Ph.D. 23 

The Standard of Pronunciation. (Abstract. ) 

Prof. Thos. R. Lounsbury, LL.D., L.H.D. 37 

Professor March's Contributions to English Scholarship 

Prof. James W. Bright, Ph.D. 43 

After Dinner Speeches : 

Professor March's Response. 67 

Alma Mater (Amherst) 

Rev. Wm. Hayes Ward, D.D., I^I^.D. 69 

The Teacher of Philosophy Rev. John Fox, D.D. 75 

The Philologist . .~ Rev. S. G. Barnes, Ph.D., Litt.D. 81 

The Spelling Reformer .-Pres. Samuel A. Martin, D.D. 87 

The Teacher Rev. James C. MacKenzie, Ph.D. 91 

The Beloved Professor • Rev. John R. Davies, D.D. 103 

Bibliography of Professor March's Writings. 107 



PRBKACE. 

This little volume is intended to be a record of the 
celebration in honor of Professor Francis A. March, 
I^L.D., I^.H.D., held at I^afayette College on October 
24th, 1895, It is customary to observe the Wednesday 
nearest the 20th of October of each year as ' ' Founders 
Day," in memory of the founders of the College and 
those who have aided in its growth and development. 
As the usual day was very near the date of the seven- 
tieth anniversary of the birth of Dr. March, it was de- 
cided to set apart Founders Day this year for the recog- 
nition of the long and efficient service of that beloved 
professor. The program which follows, was prepared 
for the occasion, but the response of the community to 
the plan was so general and so spontaneous that the 
formal program, ample as it was, proved but a part of 
the day's exercises. The day was one of the most 
beautiful of October days, and lovely I^afayette was 
glorious in all the beauty of autumnal leafage and sun- 
shine. The citizens of Easton asked to be allowed to 
testify their esteem for Dr. March, and to the number of 
about one thousand formed at the Centre Square and 
marched in procession to College Hill at 10 o'clock. 
The order of march was as follows : 



Platoon of Police. 

Delegation of City Firemen. 

!Easton Band. 

Mayor Field and Other City Officials. 

Members of Select Council. 

Members of Common Council. 

Members of the Board of Trade. 

Business Men. 

Resident Alumni of Lafayette College. 

Representatives of Brainerd-Union Church. 

Members of Evangelical Alliance. 

Citizens of Easton. 

Members of the Board of Control. 

Superintendent and Teachers of the Easton Public Schools. 

Members of the Teachers' Institute. 

The long column passed through North Third street, 
up the winding path, past the monument, to South Col- 
lege. There the police and firemen formed imtuediately 
in front of the main entrance. All the windows were 
occupied by people watching the interesting scenes. 

The Mayor then presented Dr. March with the free- 
dom of the City, a committee of the Board of Trade, 
the local Alumni, and the School Board with compli- 
mentary resolutions, the Evangelical Alliance with an 
expression of appreciation of his long usefulness as a 
Christian teacher, and the Brainerd-Union Church with 
a handsomely inscribed Bible. 

The procession of Trustees, Faculty, students, alumni 
and guests then formed at South College and marched 
to Pardee Hall, where the exercises of the morning were 
held according to the following program : 



PROGRAIVI. 



THE AUDITORlUn OF PARDEE HALL. 

II A. M. 



Invocation, - - Prof. Thos. C. Porter, D.D., IvI,.D., '40. 

Introduction of President of the Day, 

President l^thelbert D. Warfield, I,I,.D. 

Response, - - Ex-President Wm. C. Cattell, D.D.,I/I/.D. 

Address, - - - Prof. Wm. Baxter Owen, Ph.D., '71. 
'* Professor March and His Work for Lafayette." 

Address, - - - Prof. Thos. R. I^ounsbury, lyl/.D., 

Yale University. 
" The Standard of Pronunciation." 

Address, - - - Prof. James W. Bright, Ph.D., '77, 

Johns Hopkins University. 
"Professor March's Contribution to English Scholarship." 

Benediction, - Rev. Robert Russell Booth, D.D., IvIv.D., 

Moderator of the General Assembly. 



Immediately after the exercises in Pardee Hall a Dinnbb was given by 
the Ladies of Easton to the alumni and invited guests in The Gymnasium, 
at which the blessing of God was asked by President Seip, of Muhlen- 
berg College. 



AFTER DINNER SPEECHES. 



RESPONSE BY Professor March. 

ALMA Mater, - Rev. Wm. Hayes Ward, D.D., IvI^.D., 

Amherst College 's6, and Trustee. 

The Eminent Citizen, .... Wm. Hackett, Ksq. 
The Teacher OF Philosophy, - Rev. John Fox, D.D., '72. 
The Philologist, - Rev. Stephen G. Barnes, Ph.D., '73. 
The Spelling-Reformer, Pres't Sam'l A. Martin, D.D., '77. 
The Pedagogue, - Rev. James C. MacKenzie, Ph.D., '78. 
The Beloved Professor, Rev. John R. Davies, D.D., '81. 



The Benediction was pronounced by Rev. Robert Httnter, 
D.D., Stated Clerk of the Synod of Penna. 



The American Philological Association, the Modem 
lyanguage Association of America, Spelling Reform As- 
sociation, the Synod of Pennsylvania and the I<ehigh 
Presbytery were officially represented, as were the fol- 
lowing Colleges and Universities: Harvard, Prof. 
I,. B. R. Briggs, Dean; Yale, Prof. T. R. I^ouns- 
bury ; Princeton, Prof. T. W. Hunt ; Johns Hop- 
kins, Prof. J. W. Bright; Williams, Rev. Dr. R. R. 
Booth, of the Trustees ; Amherst, Rev. Dr. William H. 
Ward, of the Trustees ; University of Pennsylvania, 
Charlemagne Tower, Jr., LI^.D., of the Trustees; I<e- 
high. Profs. W. A. Robinson and K. M. Hyde ; Muh- 
lenbergh, President T. 1,. Seip ; Bryn Mawr, Prof. H. 
W. Smyth. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 

By Prop. F, A. March, Jr. 

CRANCIS ANDREW MARCH was born in Millbury, 
Mass., Oct. 25, 1825. He is sixth in descent from 
Hugh March of Newbury, Mass. (1620-1693) and 
Judith (d. 1675). In 1653 Mistress Judith was ** pre- 
sented for wearing a silk hood and scarf," but dis- 
charged on proof that her husband was of ' ' considera- 
ble estate" (Coffin, Hist. Newbury, p. 58). All of the 
four sons of Hugh were officers in the colonial army 
during the French and Indian wars, one of them, Col. 
John March (1658-1725) being especially distinguished 
as * * the foremost military leader in New England up to 
the time of the Port Royal expedition" (1607), which 
he commanded, and ' ' the failure of which may fairly be 
charged in part to the Governor who sent him out and 
to the officers of the Deptford, which was the convoy of 
the expedition" (Johnson's Univ. Cyc). 

Daniel March, third in descent, in 1753 bought 
lands by the Blackstone river in Sutton (now Millbury) , 
in the central residence upon which Francis Andrew 
March was born, the eldest child of Andrew (b. Oct. 13, 
1798, d. Feb. 20, 1874) and Nancy Parker March (d. 
Feb. 20, 1830, aged 25). 

When he was three years of age, his father, upon the 



building of the Blackstone canal through his grounds 
close by his house despite his vigorous resistance, sold 
the estate to his brother Nathan, and moved to Wor- 
cester, Mass., taking up his residence in an old-fash- 
ioned colonial mansion, which he had inherited from his 
mother, a daughter of Henry Patch of Worcester. 

In Worcester he entered upon various business pro- 
jects, particularly the manufacture of fine cutlery, one 
of the first enterprises of this character in this country, 
and for which it was necessary to import English work- 
men. 

Francis Andrew March thus began his education in 
Worcester. He received a notable stimulus in early 
childhood in a kind of kindergarten in the family of 
Dr. 1,. I. Hoadley, Sabbath- School author, then preach- 
ing in Worcester, in which Miss Collins with ingenious 
contrivances and apparatus made the children under- 
stand many things before the usual time. 

This helped him greatly in the public schools of Wor- 
cester, where his education was continued, as it enabled 
him to keep up easily with older boys, and to make the 
most of the instruction in these schools, esteemed in that 
region the best in the world. 

A notable teacher in the High School at that time 
was Charles Thurber, afterwards known as an inventor 
of revolving pistols, who took an active part in the work 
of the literary societies connected with the school, and 



13 

encouraged the boys to many kinds of literary work. 
There were many clever boys, too, in the school, some 
of whom afterwards became distinguished. Among 
them were Horace Davis, president of the University of 
California, brigadier-general Hasbrouck Davis, the col- 
lege hero of his classmate Professor W. D. Whitney, and 
Judge J. C. B. Davis, minister to Germany, nephews of 
the historian George Bancroft ; President Thomas Chase, 
of Haverford, and his brother Professor Pliny E. Chase ; 
Andrew H. Green, of New York City, and his brother 
Oliver B. Green, of Chicago. 

Worcester at this time was full of intellectual activity. 
The anti-slavery agitation was beginning, and Theodore 
Parker, Emerson and Wendell Phillips were stirring 
men's souls. Worcester also was fortunate in possess- 
ing the library of the American Antiquarian Society, a 
free and large collection of the best books. 

Francis A. March took an active part in all that was 
going on. In the literary societies he wrote freely, prose 
and verse, took part in the acting of plays, in searching 
for good old plays to act, and making new ones ; in the 
library he looked into books of many literatures ; and he 
was a leader on the playground as well as in the class- 
room. 

Meanwhile misfortunes had fallen thick upon his 
father. His partner in the cutlery manufactory had 
disappeared with much of his property, a store in which 



14 

he was interested had been destroyed by fire, and finally 
his residence had gone up in smoke. He found himself 
unable to send his son to college. 

At this critical point the Hon. Alfred D. Foster, of 
Worcester, a trustee of Amherst College, offered the boy 
a provision of $200 a year for a college course at Am- 
herst. 

Entering Amherst in 1841, at the age of 15, he took 
at once a leading position in scholarship and in athletics. 
He was a prize speaker, and took first parts in the ex- 
hibitions, the highest undergraduate Amherst honors, 
and upon graduation received the valedictory appoint- 
ment. 

He was president of the Alexandrian lyiterary So- 
ciety, and a member of the Alpha Delta Phi and Phi 
Beta Kappa fraternities. 

Some of the other prominent members of the class of 
'45 were the Hon. Henry Stockbridge, of Baltimore ; 
Prof. Marshall Henshaw, of Rutgers ; Professor J. S. 
I^ee, of St. lyawrence Univ. ; and J. R. Brigham, Esq., 
City Attorney of Milwaukee and regent of the University 
of Wisconsin ; and there are others, preachers, better 
known in India and Zululand and through the wilds of 
the west — Noyes, Tyler, Packard, Woodworth. 

Much of the best work done by Mr. March at college 
was done outside of the college classroom. He was 
especially interested in philosophical studies, and had 



15 

far-reaching plans for work in that direction. In his 
Junior year he delivered the Junior Oration upon 
" Greatest-Happiness Philosophy," and at Commence- 
ment spoke upon *' God in Science." His attention, 
however, was directed toward the study of Anglo-Saxon 
and of English by the lectures of Noah Webster and the 
instruction of Prof. W. C. Fowler, his son-in-law, the 
author of the well-known English grammars. 

Upon graduation Mr. March went to Swanzey, N. H., 
and taught there for the fall term, then to the lycicester 
Academy, where he stayed two years, and had many 
notable pupils, among others Oliver Ames, Governor of 
Mass. He here made trial of the plan of teaching Eng- 
lish classics like the I^atin and Greek. 

From 1847 to 1849 he was a tutor in Amherst and 
again lived in the midst of high English studies. During 
this time he became intimately acquainted with Prof. 
Henry B. Smith, the eminent philosophical and theo- 
logical writer, afterwards of Union Theological Semi- 
nary. 

Meanwhile he had decided upon a legal career and 
had been studying law while teaching, and during vaca- 
tions in the office of F. H. Dewey, Esq., a prominent 
attorney in Worcester, since an honored judge. 

In 1848 he delivered the Master's Oration for his class 
upon the ' ' Relation of the Study of Jurisprudence to 
the Baconian Philosophy." This was a notable success, 



i6 

receiving special approbation from Rufus Choate, who 
happened to hear it. It was sought for publication in 
ih^New Englander, and was Mr. March's first article in a 
prominent review. 

In 1849 he went to New York and entered as a law stu- 
dent in the office of Barney & Butler. Mr. Barney was 
afterwards collector of the port of New York. Mr. B. F. 
Butler had been Van Buren's Attorney General. Mr. Wm. 
Allen Butler, his son, early well known as the author 
of "Nothing to Wear" and other literary work, and 
now a leader of the bar in New York, was also a member 
of the firm. In 1850, in partnership with Gordon I^. 
Ford, Esq., he entered upon the practice of the law. 
After about two years he was attacked by bleeding 
from the lungs and was sent to Cuba. There and at 
Key West he stayed until the following summer, when 
he returned to New York. Upon resuming legal work, 
the attacks of bleeding continued and he gave up 
finally all hope of a legal career, and even of life. 
Seeking a warmer climate he then (through the Rev. 
layman Coleman, then teaching at Philadelphia, whom 
he had known at Amherst) found a position as teacher 
in a private academy at Fredericksburg, Va., and he 
stayed three years in Fredericksburg. 

In 1855, Dr. McPhail, the head of the academy, after- 
wards president of I^afayette College, but then lately 
called to the Brainerd Church at Kaston, induced 



17 

him to come to I^afayette as Tutor. In 1856 lie became 
Adjunct Prof, of Belles I^ettres and English lyiterature, 
in 1857, Prof, of the English Language and Compara- 
tive Philology. Since 1857 he has stayed at Eafayette 
in this professorship, the first of the kind in any col- 
lege. From 1875 to 1877 he was Lecturer on Constitu- 
tional and Public Law and the Roman Law. 

Dr. March's early work was in the direction of philo- 
sophical study. His articles in the Princeton Review 
upon philosophical subjects in i860 attracted much at- 
tention, bringing him to the friendly notice of Dr. Mc- 
Cosh, still in Ireland, and leading to a correspondence 
with Cousin, who desired him to undertake the intro- 
duction of his works into America. Since the resigna- 
tion of President McPhail in 1863, Prof. March has 
taken charge of the college classes in Mental Philosophy. 

Dr. March, however, was gradually turning his atten- 
tion to the philological work, for which he is so well known. 

He had taken up the plan of teaching the English 
classics in the same way as the Greek classics were then 
taught, making a thorough study of the text, word by 
word, as well as of the life and times of the author to 
explain it. He had tried this course first in the fitting 
schools, in Leicester Academy, with success, and later 
in Lafayette College. The growth of such studies has 
been rapid. Many teachers in them have been trained 
at Lafayette. 



i8 

During Dr. March's first years at Ivafayette lie heard 
many recitations upon general subjects, filling up all 
recitation hours. The comparative philology of each 
language was studied in connection with a classic in 
that language, and Dr. March took classes in I^atin, 
Greek, French and German according to this plan, 
summing up the whole by general study of philology at 
the end of the college course. 

When the Douglass endowment afforded funds for the 
study of the Christian classics, Dr. March took an active 
part in the instruction of the course. He also edited a 
series of text-books to be used in this course, entirely 
preparing a selection of *' I^atin Hymns," which has 
been especially successful. 

For many years Dr. March has taught Blackstone, 
and until late years took the classes in Political Economy 
and Constitution of the United States. At about the 
time of the breaking out of the civil war he prepared a 
scheme of amendments to the Constitution of the United 
States, intended to bring about a peaceful settlement of 
the difficulties between the North and South, which he 
advocated by letters to the New York Times and World. 
These amendments attracted much attention, and were 
introduced in Congress, in the Virginia legislature and 
elsewhere. 

Dr. March's liability to attacks of bleeding continued 
for many years and largely determined his manner of 



19 

life. He had to shun all the excitements of general 
conversation as well as public speaking, and spend the 
time not occupied with active duties in gentle exercise, 
or quiet studies and rest at home. He walked much ; 
he took the classes in botany until Dr. Porter came in 1866. 

His linguistic studies, however, called for the making 
of new books, and other use of the press to promote the 
study of higher English in our schools and colleges. 
From 1864 to 1871 he had always on hand the Anglo- 
Saxon Grammar and Reader; from 1872 to 1879 the 
Douglass Series of Christian Greek and lyatin Classics ; 
from 1874 onward, Spelling Reform documents, addresses 
and correspondence ; from 1879 to 1882 the direction of 
American readers for the Dictionary of the Philological 
Society, I^ondon ; from 1890 to 1895 the Standard Dic- 
tionary of the Funk and Wagnalls Company. 

Pie has found time, however, to prepare papers for 
the yearly meetings of the American Philological Asso- 
ciation (he seems to have been the most frequent con- 
tributor) , and for other learned societies, and for periodi- 
cals, as will be seen by the appended bibliography. 

Prof. March has received the degree of I^I/.D. from 
Princeton, 1870, Amherst, 1871 (semi-centennial), 
L.H.D. from Columbia, 1887 (centennial). He is presi- 
dent of the Am. Philol. Assoc, 1895, having served a 
previous term in 1873-4. He is president of the Spell- 
ing Reform Association, having been re-elected annually 



since 1876. From 1891 to 1893 he was president of the 
Modern I^anguage Association of America, being the 
successor of James Russell lyowell. He is the only- 
American honorary member of the Philol. Society, I^on- 
don. He is also hon. mem. ly' Assoc. Fonetique des 
Professeurs de Lang. Vivantes, Paris ; vice-president 
New Shakspere Soc, London; senator of Phi Beta 
Kappa; mem. of the National Council of Education, the 
Am. Philos. Society, the Am. Antiquarian Soc, etal. 

Prof. March has been chairman of the Commission of the 
State of Pa. on Amended Orthography, director of the 
American Workers for the Hist. Kng. Diet, of the Philol. 
Society, Eng., and consulting editor of the Funk and 
Wagnalls Company's Standard Dictionary of the Eng- 
lish Language. 

Prof. March was married in i860 to Margaret Mildred 
Stone Conway, a great-granddaughter of the Hon. 
Thomas Stone, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, and a daughter of Hon. W. P. Conway, 
for thirty years presiding justice of Stafford County, Va. , 
andasisterof MoncureD. Conway, the well-known author 
and lecturer. By this marriage there have been nine chil- 
dren, of whom eight are living — Francis Andrew, Prof. 
Lafayette College; Peyton Conway, Lieut. U. S. A.; 
Thomas Stone, Sup. Pub. Schools, Clearfield, Pa. ; 
Alden; Moncure; John Lewis; Mildred; and Margaret 
Daniel. There are six grandchildren; Katharine, Mil- 
dred, Francis Andrew, 2nd Jr., Francis Andrew, 3rd, 
Peyton Conway, Jr., and Josephine. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

By Dr. William C. Cattell. 

piFTKBN years ago, at the dedication of the new 
Pardee Hall, Professor March delivered the address 
of the day before a notable assemblage that crowded 
every part of this spacious and beautiful Auditorium. 
On that occasion, as President of the College, I occupied 
the chair which, by the invitation of your honored 
President and his colleagues in the Faculty, I take this 
morning when another distinguished assemblage has 
filled this same Auditorium and all eyes are again 
turned toward Professor March. In 1880 it was a part 
of my duty to present to the audience the speaker of the 
day as he rose to deliver his address. This gave me an 
opportunity, but one all too brief, to speak of the great 
scholar and teacher and of his work. To-day others will 
speak of Professor March ; nor will that which is said of 
him be preliminary or supplementary to anything else. 
Indeed it is for this purpose alone we have come together, 
and we shall hear from those who are most competent to 
estimate the great service he has rendered, not only to 
I/afayette College, but to the age in which we live. 
Some of these are selected from Professor March's own 
students, and I know how lovingly and fittingly they 
will speak of the great master to whom they owe so much. 



Before introducing these speakers, I wisti only to say 
that while others may appreciate as highly as I do the 
profound scholar, the vigorous and original thinker and 
the marvelous teacher, I doubt if any one here to-day is 
so well able to speak of him as a friend. I look back 
over forty years of unbroken friendship which began in 
our common work as young professors together at the 
college. During the twenty years in which I sustained 
the responsibilities and labors of the Presidency, he 
never failed me. Few college presidents have had such 
a noble and helpful band of colleagues as I had in the 
Faculty at I^afayette, but it was to Professor March that 
I always turned first of all. With the memory of what 
he has been to me during all these many years, I turn 
and look upon his face to-day rejoicing and giving thanks 
to God that I have had, and still have, such a friend. 



DR. MARCH AND HIS WORK FOR LAFAYETTE. 

By W. B. Owen, Ph.D. 

\ A/E do not go back to-day to the very beginning, but 
to that event which made an epoch in the history 
of this college, the coming of Dr. March. This was a 
much smaller college then, with many a trace of her ear- 
lier struggles still remaining. The situation was here 
however, and that must have whispered prophecies to 
any one who had ears to hear the intention of nature. 
There were great men here, — Dr. James H. Coffin, of 
revered memory, a profound scholar and noblest of men ; 
Dr. Traill Green, still with us, loved and honored ; Dr. 
Cattell, young, strong, gifted, alert and sanguine. Then 
there was an element of the heroic in the past that was 
inspiring ; and Dr. Cattell, with the intuition of a seer, 
knew that the prayers and toils and sacrifices of that 
early period were not to be in vain. Dr. March soon 
caught some glow of this prophetic heat, and they pro- 
phesied, — as men who are willing to devote themselves 
do prophesy — that I^afayette was to be a great college. 
Then to make sure that their prophecy should not fail of 
fulfilment, they joined their hands and made her great. 
So we have the life of the good Doctor here, his work 
here, his fame growing up here, and still growing, though 
it has gone to the world's end, and his affection firmly 



24 

rooted here. To him this institution has always been 
what it was to Dr. Junkin, " I^ovely Lafayette." There 
have been hard times, when the authorities were com- 
pelled to say frankly that they could make no definite 
promise about salary. Dr. March staid right here. 
Presidents of larger and richer colleges have come here 
and offered him a princely salary if he would go with 
them, — Dr. March staid right here, for better or for worse, 
wedded, if Mrs. March will allow me that convenient 
phrase, wedded to I^afayette College. Such devotion 
shall have its reward ; and let no one suppose that it does 
not in some immediate sense have its reward. Beautiful 
for situation, — what more delightful place to live and 
work could be conceived than here where nature has lav- 
ished her charms and art has made them more beautiful. 
Then it is a pleasure to work with the men who come 
to lyafayette, earnest students for the most part, who ap- 
preciate the advantages of a life in college, — men, many 
of whom have to make some sacrifices to be here, econo- 
mize, and draw upon the future. When such men, with 
the ambition of real scholars, turn into the walks of learn- 
ing, their companionship in these pursuits is a boon to 
be coveted, and a goodly share of this pleasure falls to 
the lot of the teacher. No one I am sure is more keenly 
alive to the pleasure of this fellowship in the community 
of scholars than Dr. March. With such men as I have 
described he has been working these forty years, and 



25 

working gladly, leaving his impress upon them, doing 
them great good, and incidentally winning their affection 
and their veneration, a return for his labor far more val- 
uable to him than any which could be measured by 
salary. 

Others will tell you of Dr. March's eminence in special 
lines of work, of his scholarship and his fame ; be it ours 
for a brief space to question our own knowledge and our 
own hearts and frankly read out the record which a noble 
life has made here, proving if we can that the illusions 
of nearness and familiar intercourse have not closed our 
eyes to the greatness of those who walk among us. 

I have not the privilege of the salutatorian at com- 
mencement to couch my remarks in I^atin. There come 
times (about once in forty years) when words of truth 
and soberness should be plainly spoken, and when such 
times come the only thing to do is to sit still and listen 
patiently. A word to the wise is sufficient. And that isour 
text — A Wise Man. Not the Sapiens of the old philoso- 
phy, learned, accurate in all the formalities of dialectics, 
readily furnished with all answers ; but the wise man of to- 
day, ampljr gifted with good sense as well as learning, 
''simple, not bound to shine, eager to hear, more eager to 
see for himself, glad to tell you what he has seen for himself, 
and well aware how little he has seen as he has walked by 
the beach of the infinite ocean of truth." These words I 
repeat from Dr. March's Phi Beta Kappa address, delivered 



26 

in 1868 at Amherst College, on '' the scholar of to-day," 
words admirably suited to our present purpose as far as they 
go; but they are not enough. Dr. March is more than a 
scholar, he is a wise man. That may include high 
attainments in learning if you please, but beyond that we 
make it include profound discernment, — and here it is — 
insight large and clear and candid ; it brings in the item 
of judgment, sensitive to the guidance of conscience, — 
and here that is, coupled with a noble rectitude, integ- 
rity both intellectual and moral ; the item of fortitude, — 
and here that is, Cicero's y^r/w atque constans ; — not 
however the stoical attitude of mere resolute submission 
to fate, but the nobler fortitude of a christian faith in 
matters pertaining to God and of a clear and great un- 
derstanding in dealing with the problems which our life 
imposes as the tasks of our intelligence. 

I am here trying to outline the character and gifts of 
our professor. I must be allowed to do that, for any 
proper estimate of a man's work and influence must pro- 
ceed from a knowledge of what the man is, what nature 
and what capacities he brings to his task. In attempt- 
ing to fill this outline in some directions in more detail, 
we find that the traits of the scholar are here paramount, 
as drawn by this scholar himself. He is ' * the servant of 
truth, ' ' * 'the interpreter of nature, ' ' seeking after the Ba- 
conian ideal the knowledge of causes and the enlarging 
of the bounds of human empire to the effecting of all 



27 

things possible. I like to call special attention to this 
address, and wisli that it might be reprinted and a copy 
of it put into the hands of every college student in the 
land; the ideal scholar is so nobly drawn in it. He is 
not the recluse, the bookworm, the man who lives in an 
atmosphere of learning and whose eyes are closed to all 
practical questions of life ; he is a ' * worker for progress, ' ' 
"devoted to the conquest of nature, the discovery of 
truth, and the welfare of the race." Our scholar too is 
richly endowed with the capacity for intelligent outlook 
upon the busy world — to know the needs of men ; and 
while he feels to the full the charms of erudition, his aim 
and his delight in scholarly pursuits is to do work whose 
results contain the promise of utility. In the address of 
which I have spoken you will note many wise practical 
suggestions, not only on the study of language and on 
education in general, bnt on questions of political and so- 
cial economy, — how to obviate the tyranny of majorities, 
how to lessen the evils connected with executive patron- 
age — living questions ; and you will see that such pro- 
gress as we have made in the solution of these problems 
in the last quarter of a century has been made along the 
lines suggested by the scholar. 

We have to distinguish further, in the sphere of studies 
and scholarly investigation, certain types and qualities 
of intellectual power. There are minds whose activities 
are exhausted in the mere observation of facts. They 



28 

see, and note, and record facts. Others there are of wider 
ken who look deeper and note relations, especially the 
relation of cause. Under such review facts fall into or- 
der. Such scholars organize the separate items of knowl- 
edge, and arrive at generalizations. This is a rarer, a 
larger, and a nobler work inasmuch as in promoting the 
welfare of men, ideas and principles have a value far ex- 
ceeding the value of facts. We must to-day turn our 
thoughts to this highest level of scholarly activity. Dr. 
March's work is of that quality. To take a single ex- 
ample — the Anglo-Saxon grammar is an achievement of 
the first rank in scholarship. "Everybody praises it," 
says Professor Max Miiller. 

Dr. March may well have caught the inspiration of a 
method from those geniuses whom he made his compan- 
ions, — ^Jacob Grimm, Francis Bopp, George Curtius, and 
the rest ; but from sitting at their feet he rose to sit beside 
them, a peer of the masters. lyinguistic knowledge has 
been grandly advanced, and the Anglo- Saxon'has taken 
its place beside the Sanskrit, the Greek, and the lyatin, 
and now shares the honors of the science of language. 

To accomplish such a work in a special field might 
well be the height of a scholar's ambition, but we must 
not stop here. There are endowments that give the wise 
man freedom in all fields. There are minds which no 
devotion to a special subject can narrow, and for which 
no breadth of pursuit can be too large. We find our 



29 

scholar not only foremost in Knglish and comparative 
philology, but taking high rank as a clear and profound 
thinker and worker in other directions : in philosophy, 
in pedagogy, in natural science, in lexicography. 
He has classes regularly in psychology, and we should 
not want to exchange him for Sir William Hamilton. 
He taught political economy for years, and we should 
not have been willing to exchange him for John Stuart 
Mill or Adam Smith ; and there is no page of literature — 
Greek, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, or English, that does not 
open its hidden treasures under the searching insight of 
the master. 

When such a mind comes to any pursuit, it comes as a 
whole with clear and ready power, and sees without exag- 
geration. That is one of our most common weaknesses — 
to look through lenses of interest that distort and magnify. 
Our enthusiasms magnify the importance of the subject 
which is for the moment under vision. To the preacher 
under one flash of insight the great virtue is purity, at an- 
other time truthfulness, at another humility ; one reformer 
would "save the race by temperance, another by some 
useful manifestation of charity; there are those who 
think Greek the great study of culture, others I^atin, 
others philosphy, and to the same educator at one time 
one branch rises to emphasis, at another time another ; the 
man who wrote a score of immortal pages on the uses and 
significance of history, could, in another mood, when on 



30 

intellectual tiptoe after another truth say * ' history is an 
impertinence and an injury." In all this there is evi- 
dence of that exaggeration and distortion which is the 
result of imperfect insight. We celebrate to-day a man 
of universal insight who grasps subjects in their princi- 
ples, who sees facts in their even value and relations, 
openly and clearly without an intervening medium of 
prejudice. Blessed is that college which has the coun- 
sels of such men in shaping its educational policy. It 
has been the good fortune of lyafayette to have from time 
to time the presence and active influence of eminent and 
gifted educators, men who were broad-minded and could 
look beyond their own particular departments and make 
a wise estimate of educational values for many or even 
for all the studies that make up a college curriculum. 
You will agree with me when I say that to no one does 
this remark more fittingly apply than to the man who to- 
day rounds out a period of forty years of service to the 
college. The course in English philology therefore, 
good and famous as it is, does not compass the whole of 
this service. Dr. March's influence has been felt in a 
commanding way, all these years and always for good, 
throughout the teaching and governing forces of the in- 
stitution, moulding its curriculum, its discipline, its pol- 
icy, and its educational methods. Add to this the charm 
of a modest simplicity — never doing anything for effect — 
no slightest taint of vanity or self-seeking. Add to this 



31 

further, the qualities of a warm and true affection, com- 
bining tender solicitude with the just requirements of 
discipline, kindly and sympathetic as well as wise. Such 
a man can see for many and give them good counsel. I 
should be glad to submit to Prof. March not only my 
I^atin schedule but many questions of my personal life, 
so far as it would be proper to do so. 

As students we were glad to take to him our problems 
whether philosophical or practical, matters of business 
or study, literature or science, from the demon of Soc- 
rates to the philosophy of Herbert Spencer — our religious 
scruples and doubts, even our politics. We always 
found that he could discern with the mind of a master 
and advise with the heart of a friend. 

This brings us to the consideration of the nearer in- 
fluence of the teacher's character and life upon those 
with whom he is in contact. 

It is much that such a scholar publishes, that his 
thoughts, his methods, his contributions to science and 
learning go abroad to men who are far away, but there 
is something much more significant in personal contact 
with such a man. We must here take into account that 
mysterious transfer of power from life to life, those intel- 
lectual and spiritual contagions by which the strong and 
great impart their strength and greatness to others. By 
some subtle communion we feel in terms of influence 
certain qualities of nature's noblemen with whom we as- 



32 

sociate. There is an inspiration of power in their very- 
presence. 

The ideal situation for this transfer is that of disciple- 
ship. There is no dream of mysticism that is not real- 
ized in the working of mind upon mind and spirit upon 
spirit in this relation. Our finest experiences come to 
us in this way, — the joys of discovery in the intellectual 
realm, the sense of added power in the realm of personal 
force. There's healing in it, there's new birth in it. 
When it comes at the word or the look of the greatest 
of teachers ; when the hem of his garment is touched 
and the flow of blood is staunched, we call it miracle, 
and so it is; but it is a miracle which, in its lesser man- 
ifestations, recurs in our daily experience. There is a 
teacher's touch at which the scales fall and the blinded 
eyes receive their sight ; and many an Klisha takes the 
mantle of the master, and with it parts the hindering 
elements, making a way for himself, in which he walks 
in the strength and in the spirit of the greater man who 
taught him. 

Such was the influence of Socrates and Scaevola, 
teaching doctrine no. doubt, but mainly giving inspira- 
tion and the infusion of their spirit and their personal 
power. 

So we may best represent the work of liberal education 
not by aggregations of massive college buildings, not by 
libraries even or laboratories or costly apparatus, but by 



33 

the teacher imparting himself by personal communion. 

Mr. Garfield's ideal of a college is one that I^afayette 
men will accept, for they know the influence of a great 
teacher. Such a teacher, rich in the treasures of mind, 
made so by experience and reading and observation and 
thought, with a sincerity and force of character that give 
weight to his every word, and make his very presence a 
benediction, gathers class after class about him, becomes 
venerable before years make him so, and lives under a 
widening halo of tender memories. Such was Dr. Ar- 
nold, Dr. Nott, Dr. Hopkins, and such is Dr. March, — 
not an aged man, but venerable in the eyes of the hun- 
dreds of strong and brave fellows who can trace to him 
the best influences that have ever come into their lives, 
making them what they are in knowledge, in conviction, 
in manliness. 

There are few teachers who impress young men more 
strongly. This influence, so far as it is connected with 
the pursuit of studies, is not the result of any peculiar 
trick or turn of mere method, but rather of a straight- 
forward scholarly and manly sincerity, going directly by 
the instincts of a clear understanding' to the very heart 
of the matter in question. The student loves a clear and 
honest thinker — one who has something to tell them and 
who can give his thoughts clear and precise expression. 

One important aim of every good educator is to arouse 
thought, to excite interest in special lines of desirable in- 



34 

vestigation, and thus stimulate the intellectual activities 
of the student. It is a great point gained to thus start 
inquiry ; but such activities must be judiciously guided. 
Mere random thinking without result is of little avail. 
Thought is for search, and search is for finding. These 
activities of inquiring minds, urged on by deepening in- 
terest, guided by a sense of right and fitness, must find 
anchorage somewhere in the havens of truth, else the 
excursions of thought will turn to aimless drifting and 
lead to indecision, worse than ignorance, worse than in- 
activity. There are hundreds of questions in history, in 
literature, in politics, in morals, about which the college 
student may well make up his mind, and have intelligent 
and settled views. The judicious teacher therefore, 
having roused thought, will often seek to give it limits in 
certain directions by stating briefly and clearly as con- 
clusions, the best results at which he can arrive. 

The teacher who is wise and great can do this best ; 
and lyafayette students know well the keen delight there 
is after study, after a lively conversation, or a class de- 
bate, to hear the clear strong words of the professor that 
go straight to the point and settle the question. 

We used to wish that Prof. March would talk more. 
He seemed to think that we ought to do a good deal of 
the talking in answer to his questions, and would try to 
overcome our reluctance by making the questions easier. 
He had great patience with us, and would b}^ an encour- 



35 

aging nod, a word, or a kindly twinkle of the eye recog- 
nize instantly any approach to merit in our stammering 
replies. That, I suppose, was education in the literal 
sense of the word — drawing us out ; and that process has 
its value too ; but what we liked best was that n^'^.v^^- 
\o\xs pouring in of truth when he talked and we listened, 
which lifted our creeping thoughts into a larger and freer 
realm, and gave us an experience of that growth which 
genius can inspire. Such experiences have an abiding 
influence for good, nor is their source forgotten. A stu- 
dent may in some cases outgrow his professor, and find 
that the classroom hero of his college days has dwindled 
a little ; but not so the teacher who kindles in his stu- 
dents the love of truth, and then ministers the judgments 
of wisdom to their awakened souls. The respect and 
veneration of student days in such cases is rather in- 
creased than diminished by the lapse of years. 

So we come back to-day after many years, some of us, 
and all of us with a deepening sense of our obligation to 
Alma Mater, thanking her for the lives and the work 
of all her noble teachers and her noble men, for Dr. Cat- 
tell, who has done so much for the college, for Dr. Knox, 
another of nature's noblemen. None of them is forgot- 
ten ; but as is fitting we give a birthday emphasis to-day 
to one memory. 

To Francis A. March we bring our greeting and the 
tribute of our grateful love. lyong may he live to bless 
the college to whose success and renown hi« work has 
been so splendid a contribution. 



ABSTRACT OF THE STANDARD OF PRONUNCIA- 
TION IN ENGLISH. 

By Prof. Thos. R. I^ounsbury, I,I/.D., Iv.H.D. 

pvIFFERKNCK in pronunciation has been from the 
earliest times a constant source of dispute and 
discussion. The question necessarily arises, who is to 
decide the differences that prevail ? Where is found the 
standard of authority to which we all must feel obliged 
to conform ? In the case of a large number of words 
there is no dispute. There are certain pronunciations 
which every educated man recognizes as vulgar ; there 
are certain others about which there is substantial agree- 
ment among all cultivated speakers. There is still an- 
other body of words upon which the pronunciation of 
the educated class differs, and often differs very widely. 
It is in regard to these that the real difficulty lies. It 
was for the purpose of settling the questions connected 
with these that the pronouncing dictionary was called 
into being a little more than a century ago. 

The first regular pronouncing dictionary in Knglish — 
excluding special and usually small publications— was that 
of Thomas Sheridan, which came out in 1780. It was 
followed by that of James Walker, which, though prepared 
previously, was not published till 1791. This latter 



38 

went through numerous editions and was widely ac- 
cepted as an authority, both in England and America. 
It was revised in 1836 by Smart, and his remodelling of 
the work, passing as it did through many editions, was 
the pronouncing dictionary most widely used of any in 
England, with the exception of Worcester's. James 
Knowles also brought out in 1835 a pronouncing dic- 
tionary which was fairly successful. In America the 
tv/o works most in use during the greater part of this 
century have been the dictionaries of Webster and Wor- 
cester. There were, however, several others in use both 
in England and America, besides those mentioned. 

The early dictionary makers felt called upon to 
answer one question which the modern ones ignore. 
Where did they get their authority to settle the pro- 
nunciation ? They all — Sheridan, Walker, Knowles, 
and Smart — asserted that they represented the speech of 
the best society both in regards to rank and intellectual 
eminence. But they differed largely with each other in 
the representation of the pronunciation of particular 
words, they criticised each other with a good deal of 
severity, they asserted either expressly or by implica- 
tion that the pronunciations authorized by their rivals 
was not that of the best society. Consequently he who 
consulted them was left in doubt as to what the best pro- 
nunciation was, and as to where he could find it best 
represented. 



39 

The real truth is that there is no such thing with us 
as a standard of pronunciation, and there can never be 
with a language possessing an orthography like ours. 
To establish satisfactorily such a standard, it would be 
necessary to ascertain the practice and opinion of able 
English-speaking persons entitled to speak with author- 
ity on the subject. This is something physically im- 
possible to be done : and if it could be done, on account 
of the varying views entertained, would leave us in the 
same state of uncertainty with which we started. Still 
this belief in the existence somewhere of a standard of 
authority is one that will die hard with the educated 
class, and with the semi-educated class will never die at 
all. The most ancient of the m3rths connected with it 
that this standard is found somewhere in London and its 
environs. The usage of that city Worcester loudly 
proclaimed that he had taken as his authority. There 
would be no objection to taking the usage of London, 
for want of anything better, if any one could tell us 
what the usage of London really is. The dictionaries 
that profess to record it, record it differently. Worces- 
ter, who was never out of New England for any length 
of time, had no means of ascertaining it. He simply 
took all the pronouncing dictionaries he could get hold 
of, whether compiled by Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irish- 
men, or Americans, recommended the pronunciations 



40 

which for various reasons suited his own taste, and 
called the result the usage of London. 

The fact is, that every pronouncing dictionary repre- 
sents the preferences or prejudices of the man or the men 
who have been concerned in its compilation. While 
therefore it is an authority of more or less value, it is 
never a binding authority. There is no objection, in- 
deed, to any one conforming his pronunciation to that of 
some particular guide. But there is objection to the 
disposition, he is apt to manifest, of insisting that every 
one else must conform his pronunciation to that of the 
particular guide he has chosen for himself. Not a sin- 
gle pronouncing dictionary in existence is a final author- 
ity, nor can there be a standard to which we all must 
conform until the spelling of every English word carries 
with it its own pronunciation. For that we must wait 
the completion of the work, of which the distinguished 
scholar, in whose honor we have met to-day, has been 
with us the foremost and the most successful advocate. 
Though he has realized even more fully than others the 
immense difficulties which beset even partial attempts at 
reform, he has never faltered, when others have speedily 
become weary. Whatever success is gained in reform- 
ing even partially the orthography of a tongue now the 
most barbarously spelled of any cultivated language in 
Christendom, will be largely due to his efforts, his cour- 
age, and his perseverance. Until the time comes for 



41 

the complete realization of tlie result for which he has 
been so long striving, we shall continue to spend no 
small share of our lives in discussing the proper way of 
pronouncing particular words, and in deciding dogmat- 
ically about points of usage, in which the authority of 
one thoroughly educated man is as good as that of an- 
other. 



PROFESSOR MARCH'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO 
ENGLISH SCHOLARSHIP. 

Prof. James W. Bright, Ph.D. 

/^ UR foremost purpose to-day is to break a long silence. 
We have pent-up feelings that have long pressed for 
utterance ; to-day we may tell each other what we have 
felt ; if words fail to convey it all — and they must fail — 
the meaning will be the clearer as the frailty of words is 
made the plainer. 

" Ivanguage ! thou art too narrow and too weak " 
[When overflowing hearts attempt to speak.] 

This is a day of pride and of gladness. There is no 
regret to intone. For no speaker is there a "setting 
first downe in his darkened countenance a doleful copy 
of what he would speake." The occasion of our meet- 
ing is full of pleasure and profit for all, — a tribute to the 
work and influence of a great and a good man. 

A truly great man, that is an exalted theme. Noth- 
ing is so excellent in the eyes of men as one in whom 
the high possibilities of our species approach realiza- 
tion; in describing whom we employ wide and deep 
words, such as mind, heart, character, — words that 
mean too much for momentary apprehension, that sym- 
bolize so much that with each repetition the mind may 
take hold of a new thread of associations to be led to the 



44 

contemplation of ennobling aspects of life. If true, com- 
plete manhood (complete in a sense that will not be mis- 
understood) were unattainable, we should have less use 
for these words in their richest significance ; it is the 
difficulty of that attainment, its supreme triumph and its 
transcendent value to the world that will always gain 
the hearty response of the people to the honoring of a 
great man. 

You will not wish me to define my terms ; definitions 
are always difficult — except when they are impossible ; 
but you are prepared to indulge in thoughts on some of 
the qualities and elements of mind and character that 
make a man complete : self-discipline that trades wisely 
with the Master's talents ; self-criticism that shuts the 
door against folly ; denial and sacrifice of self for that 
which is ordained to be comprehensive of self ; vision of 
the ideal, and depth of moral purpose to strive toward 
the unattainable ; devotion to truth ; philosophic appre- 
hension of the co-relation of knowledges ; calm and reso- 
lute valuation of individual powers and limitations, 
lifted to the high plane of endeavor by faith in the ulti- 
mate survival of that alone which is true and good. 

I am not unmindful that the specific topic assigned to 
guide my thoughts in what I am privileged to say to 
you to-day is the work of Professor March as a scholar. 
I am also mindful that whatever I may wish to say must 
be said briefly. On our beautiful and endeared College 



45 

Hill I am, as ever, sub ferula ; that, of course, must be 
kept in mind. But I am to speak of a scholar and of 
scholarship ; and while you are thinking more you will 
also wish to hear more of that estimation of a scholar's 
work which is determined, not by a statistical showing 
of his technical research and observation, but by the 
value, to the cause of human progress, of the underly- 
ing and overruling purposes of the scholar. These are 
purposes that are not always uppermost in our minds 
when we contrast the diffident retirement, the modest 
demeanor, the simple life of the scholar, with the event- 
ful and effective career of the man of business. For 
'commission', the word of material profit, the scholar 
substitutes 'mission,' — the mission to further the high- 
est interests of man. Any lower interpretation of the 
scholar's work must fail to account for the scholar him- 
self. But if the world bears him witness that he is, the 
purpose of his life is sure testimony of what he is, — a 
true man. 

Years ago Professor March himself described the char- 
acter and mission of the "Scholar of to-day."* By his 
own life he has shown the best meaning of his words. 
Without ostentation, self -poised, working with quiet 
ceaseless energy, wise, catholic, tolerant, deeply kind 
and joyous in hope, the true scholar must fill us with 

* " The Scholar of To-day." An address before the Phi Beta Kappa Soci- 
ety of Amherst College. Commencement 1868. Am. Presbyterian Review, Jan- 
uary, 1869. 



46 

admiration and warm our hearts. It is, I am sure, a 
special lesson of to-day to reflect upon how truly worthy 
the scholar is of personal, institutional, local, national 
and international regard. We are here to testify that 
Professor March has won that regard. Our personal 
feelings are uppermost. The sons of I^afayette College 
called home to-day, — and how eagerly we have come ! — 
are tingling with emotions of gratitude to the man, the 
teacher, the scholar, who has so powerfully influenced 
our lives. The College which he has served so long 
with a devotion that has forever linked his name with 
its history, pays to Professor March its highest corporate 
tribute of respect by appropriately merging the observ- 
ances of its "Founder's Day" into such as may cele- 
brate the work of one of its chief builders. Citizens of 
Baston — tried and faithful friends of the College — are 
here to honor the most distinguished member of their 
community. The official head of our national edu- 
cational system has, at the last moment, been pre- 
vented, regretfully, from being here to acknowledge 
that portion of the national debt which is due Professor 
March. In the wider republic of scholar, which knows 
no national boundaries, universal approval will set its 
seal to the intent of these proceedings. 

At no time in our national history — perhaps at no 
time in any national history — have educational problems 
received so much attention as at present. New sciences, 



47 

new methods, new institutions, how familiar the sound 
of these designations ! There have sprung up new apos- 
tles of culture, and new apostles of 'natural knowledge.' 
Broad-minded, clear-sighted, ready-handed men are re- 
adjusting our schools, and colleges, and universities to 
the widened and widening reaches of knowledge and to 
the increased complexity of the conditions of life. More- 
over, the incoming tide of this flood of awakened con- 
cern for knowledge has broken over the limits of institu- 
tional agencies to irrigate new agencies for popular in- 
struction. The scholar's self- adjustment to the scien- 
tific and educational progress of our times is a duty, 
therefore, requiring constant vigilance, strenuous effort 
and unfailing enthusiasm, for it is beset by special 
temptations: temptations of over-haste, of superficial 
over- reaching, of neglect of sure inner growth of power. 
Another allurement is at hand ; it is that which is based 
on a possible extension of the laws of trade into the do- 
main of scholarship. To press too far the direct relation 
to material values, practical uses or popular demand, 
the results of the laboratory and the library, — in all its 
forms and graduations this is an alluring temptation 
which may overtake the unwary. Under these condi- 
tions the scholar's career, it may seem, has gained the 
fascination of peril. However that may be, the old 
charm of this life, 

" They praised are alone, and starve right merrily." 



48 

is still preserved, at least to the measure of the second 
half. And there is praise too — the second half, 
** He pays half who does confess the debt." 

And the future has promises of still more. For, what- 
ever confusion of vision may attend the present haste to 
reap the material benefits of applied science, and the 
haste to acquire and spread abroad knowledge — this 
*' universal diffusion of elevation," as the Widow Bedott 
would name it, — in due season there will be a clearer 
outlook from a higher plane, and then the scholar will 
be more generally understood as the devoted servant of 
truth and of progress. As, therefore, we to-day honor 
a scholar for what he has done and for what he is doing, 
we may be assured that the gratitude and veneration of 
the future will be his also. This is the scholar's reward. 
His eyes are ever on the future ; for it he labors ; and 
the present must often be stripped of adventitious encum- 
brances before the whole worth of his service can be 
known. 

The scholar's conscious projection of himself into the 
future is not an act of evasion of the responsibilities of 
the present. A popular writer has recently recorded 
these words: "the chivalry of the past, high-minded, 
ill-informed, unforeseeing, — the chivalry of the present, 
which reaches on always into futurity with the long arm 
of knowledge, not deceiving itself with romantic misrep- 
resentations by the way, but fully recognizing what is 



49 

wrong from the outset, and making direct for the root of 
the evil instead of contenting itself by lopping a branch 
here and there." Truly the scholar is chivalric, heroic. 
His is the ' * splendid pastime of scientific research ; " he 
is the chief figure in **the great tragedy of science — the 
slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." He 
is a man of action, holding the doctrine, **Who does 
not toil is dead;" of effective action, who apprehends 
the wisdom of ''Uncle Esek's" saying, ''The man who 
can do four things fairly well, will find four men who 
can do each one of the four things better, and thus his 
occupation is gone." In the great business of science 
he understands the value of aptitude and of right divi- 
sion of labor. The author of The Man of Feeling had in 
his pocket, for wadding at shooting, the pages of one of 
the German lUustrissimi ; his companion, the fat curate, 
was equally well supplied, for the same purpose, with 
the strange manuscript "history," which, for lack of a 
' ' single syllogism from beginning to end, ' ' had found no 
higher way into the favor of the * ' strenuous logician ' ' . 
They exchanged books, and both were probably saved. 
I believe that the time has gone by when the scholar's 
mode of work might be thought to call for justification. 
During the past few decades much has been carelessly 
said by thoughtful people — more by thoughtless ones — 
impugning specialization. Meanwhile it has been becom- 
ing evident enough — the wonder is that it did not always 



50 

remain evident — that accuracy in details can alone lead 
to fruitful knowledge. There is indeed general knowl- 
edge that is also sound knowledge, but it is sound only 
to the extent that it may have its roots in sympathetic 
and penetrating interpretation of the hidden meaning 
and interrelation of observed phenomena in the world of 
mind and matter. Contrast the constructive labor of 
patient students of the laws of mind and of nature, with 
the philosophy of those who with Kvadne hold the 
* * ideal of bliss " to be "to know nothing and believe in 
ghosts," and you will perhaps be tempted to extend 
the application of the terms. The worthy blustering 
Master Mayor of Woodstock's observations of the light 
that burned "with no earthly fuel" have their value, 
but is that an interest that should exclude the mode of 
observation that reveals the spectral line D3 of the 
unearthly chromosphere, and finds it at last to burn also 
with an ' ' earthly ' ' fuel ? 

More than I could now say briefly and in a general 
way of Professor March's work is already widely known. 
At home and abroad he has won the distinction of a 
great scholar, and his name is ever>^where associated 
with definite events in the history of English studies. 
For America he stands as the pioneer and first master 
in the scientific study of the vernacular, and the Euro- 
pean nations admit him to the company of the leading 
philologists of the period reaching from the Compendium 



51 

of SchleicliertoBrugman's Indo-European Grammar. It 
would be instructive to consider the causes and circum- 
stances which have contributed most to the clearness of 
outline in our present view of his place in philological his- 
tory. Early in his career, insight and foresight revealed 
to him the chief purpose of his life ; circumstances of 
his vocation came fortunately to his aid ; and happily 
his life has been prolonged to a time when an objective 
view may be taken of some of the most important of the 
events in which he had a part. Here is a suggestion of 
a three-fold topic which cannot, within the allowed lim- 
its of time, be pursued in complete and orderly fashion. 
But let us not fail to take hold of the central substance 
of the suggestion. The young teacher and scholar was 
endowed with a creative imagination. At college, when 
his curious eyes were opened to the strange sight of 
Anglo-Saxon books,* the enthusiasm of his life was be- 
gotten. Thereafter he began to exhort, with Paul to 
Timothy, "bring the books, especially the parchments," 
and to image in his mind that service to his country 
which has since justified his enthusiasm and proved that 
his vision was clear. By extending and deepening his 
knowledge he gained admittance into the inner circle of 
fellowship and cooperation with European scholars. In 
due time he brought to completion his most important 

* See " Recollections of I<anguage Teaching." Proceedings of the Modern 
Language Association of America for 1892, p. xix f. 



52 

task, and the Trustees of I^afayette College wisely and 
generously welcomed it by personally supplying neces- 
sary financial aid. The publication of the Anglo-Saxon 
Grammar, falling near the middle point of Professor 
March's career, marks the beginning of a new era in 
English studies in our country, — a beginning which is 
now far enough removed to be calmly considered and 
duly estimated. With reference to this Grammar one 
may say, significantly, that Professor March began with 
the vision of a prophet, he proclaimed his prophecy, and 
then had the happiness to see its fulfilment. During 
the first half of the forty years of his service at Lafayette 
College, Professor March was in advance of his time in 
the matter of his conception of English as a philological 
science, and the second half of that period has, if we 
would be as generous as possible in judgment of our- 
selves, just brought us to look steadily in the direction 
of his guiding hand, and pursue the path of his teaching. 
If I have thus drawn your attention to what may be 
regarded the central achievement in the long list of Pro- 
fessor March's labors, it is not to be inferred that there 
has been an ascending to and a descending from a cen- 
tral point. Professor Bascom has truly and admirably 
said, "Times, like colors on the clouds, have no definite 
outlines; they have centers, surfaces, directions, not 
margins." It is of such a center that I speak — a center 
raining influence far and wide. Let us, therefore, keep 



53 

our eyes a moment longer on the pages of the Anglo- 
Saxon Grammar. 

On the threshold of the book we are arrested by a long 
list of consulted authorities. That is a marv^elous page 
to have been printed in America at that time. From 
YLick^e^s' InsiituHones through, the works of Grimm, Rask, 
Pott, Bopp, Kuhn, Corssen, Curtius and Schleicher to 
Grein's Bibliothek, — no one even in Europe had trav- 
ersed that hard road in the interests of an Anglo-Saxon 
Grammar. We now turn over the pages to discover 
that we have here not a mere rSchauffS- — a warming up — 
of European products, not a dependent, mechanical 
accommodation of foreign science to the meridian at 
Washington, but a work of powerful originality, of 
fecundity of resource, crowded with the results of wide 
learning and keen independent observation, arranged 
with admirable skill in philosophic systemization, and 
clothed in expression of profound simplicity. Such 
books mark and make epochs ; and our German cousins 
who are always writing and sometimes discover others 
writing * epoch-making ' books, were prompt to ac- 
knowledge the necessity of dating another of their sci- 
entific epochs from the date of this American publica- 
tion. England received it in the spirit of the words of 
Mr. A. J. Ellis, "In the department of grammar, it is 
pleasant to think that we at last have a book in English 
which is really up to the mark of modern philology. * Prof. 

'^Transactions of the Philological Society (I,ondoii), The annual address of 
the President for 1874. 



54 

F. Max Miiller ranked its author as a peer of German 
and l^rench. savanis,^ and TAe Athaeneum^^ in the same 
tone, exclaimed, ' ' Two admirable works — ' An Anglo- 
Saxon Grammar' and 'Anglo-Saxon Reader,' by Pro- 
fessor March of I^afayette College — show that the stud- 
ies of a philological character carried on at a compara- 
tively small American institution, are not surpassed in 
thoroughness by those we are accustomed to associate 
with German Universities." France paid her tribute 
of grateful acknowledgment in a respectful dedication to 
Professor March of a brochure by M. ly. Botkine^ which 
introduced the Beowulf to i\iQ. French people. At home, 
Professor Whitney pointed to the Grammar with pride 
as a credit to American philology,"* and it was every- 
where warmly greeted with the new enthusiasm which 
Indo-European comparative grammar was awakening. 
Few teachers of English in America could at that time 
understand even the elementary parts of this marvelous 
book; but they bought it, wondered at it, and then gave 
themselves over to despair. Those who survived the 
first shock of this amazement, returned to the book to 
gather more and more of its meaning. The leaven en- 
tered the mass, and has now been working in it for a 
quarter of a century. English scholarship, in conse- 

1 Chips from a German Workshop, iv, 431. 

2 For January 7, 1871. 

^ Beowulf ,ipopie Anglo-Saxonne, analyse historique et gtographique. Par I<. 
Botkine. Havre, 1876. 

4 The North American Review, April, 1871. 



55 

quence, is now coming to mean just what scholarsliip in 
Greek or I^atin means. Mr. E. A. Freeman, although 
not a philologist, had the right idea, that the true study 
of any Indo- European language constitutes one of the 
several coordinate departments of Indo-European philol- 
ogy, each starting from the hypothetical parent speech 
and proceeding along the entire course of the history of 
the separate language up to the present. The study of lit- 
erature goes hand in hand with that of the language, 
and must be pursued by methods to an equal degree his- 
toric and comparative. In its higher ranges philology 
embraces both these departments. Serviceable divi- 
sions of labor are not to be mistaken for divisions inherent 
in the nature of subjects. The true scholar is always 
philosophic, constructive, creative, however minute the 
details with which he may be chiefly concerned. I^et 
the comprehensive imagination, the poetic vision and 
the deep human sympathy of philologists from Grimm 
to Whitney be kept in mind, when our ears may be 
assailed by the puny obtrusive cry of those who hold 
that philology is the toe of clay that puts to shame the 
literary body of brass. Our Chaucerian philologist is 
without a peer as a scholar and critic in ballad litera- 
ture ; our Greek grammarian interprets the finely elusive 
phrase and delicate music of Pindar ; our Anglo-Saxon 
scholar inspires the love of the poets, and quickens emo- 



56 

tional response to the sublimities of Milton. Of each of 

these it may be said 

** His praise dispraises, his dispraises praise ; 
Enough, if best men best thy labors deem, 
And to the highest pitch thy merit raise." 

But, to resume the thread of our story, the Anglo- 
Saxon Grammar as both an Knglish Grammar and a 
contribution to Indo-European philology, reflected the 
full significance of Professor March's official title, — a 
title bestowed for the first time in the history of educa- 
tion by the Trustees of I^afayette College, — "Professor 
of the Knglish I^anguage and Comparative Philology." 
This official association of English as an academic disci- 
pline with the science of comparative philology, and the 
fruits and influence of this professorship give to I^afay- 
ette College a unique place among American Institu- 
tions. I shall presently notice briefly some of the tech- 
nical features of the Grammar. It is a great book, 
worthy of a great man, and as the world never forgets 
great books, it is safe in the hands of destiny. We 
must, perforce, pass by — but let it not be thoughtlessly — 
the unwritten history of such a book, that hidden record 
dn the heart of days and nights, months and years of 
self-forgetting toil too severe to be sustained by the 
power of any impulse that does not spring from a deep 
consecration of life to duty. But there are approaches 
to that central achievement which furnish welcome 



57 

glimpses into some aspects of its unwritten history. As 
a teacher of English in I^eicester Academy, Massachu- 
setts, Professor March, just out of college, with a mind 
trained to habits of accuracy in the study of I^atin and 
Greek authors, conceived and began to practice his well- 
known doctrine "to teach English like Latin or Greek." 
Twenty years later this doctrine was set forth and made 
available for use in Method of Philological Study of the 
English Language. Words in the preface to this little 
book reveal not only the comprehensiveness of the 
author's method of studying English classics, but also 
the wide range of the philologist's vision and his deep 
philosophy, and prepare the way for the necessary basis 
of the method — the Comparative Anglo-Saxon Grammar 
which was then — five years before its completion — already 
engaging his serious efforts. I^et me quote those words : 
"A thorough method of philological study plainly 
has questions to ask of psychology, since the general 
laws of language are on one side also laws of mind ; it 
includes the study of the history and character of a race 
and their language, and of the nature in which they 
have lived, since from these result the peculiar laws and 
idioms of a language, and the power of special words 
and phrases over the national heart; it includes the 
study of the life and times, and of the character of the 
author, since his idiotisms are a resultant of the influ- 
ences of the age and his own genius; it implies the 



58 

Study of many books in many languages, since it is only 
by a comparison of works of different nations and ages 
that we can find out the peculiarities of each nation, 
age, and person, and trace the influences from which a 
great work has sprung, and the influences which it has 
exerted on other minds and on language. The science 
of language (Comparative Philology) has still a wider 
range ; it seeks to know and reduce to system all the 
facts and laws of speech, and to ground them in laws of 
mind and of the organs of speech : there is no nook of 
man's mind, or heart, or will, no part of his nature or 
history, into which the student of language may not be 
called to look." To have been the apostle of this gos- 
pel is to have imparted a new and virile vitality to 
English scholarship. 

Prof. March has labored much to influence the teach- 
ing of English, to put the most abstruse facts and 
principles of linguistic science into serviceable form for 
class-instruction. Always a profound scholar, he never 
forgot the function of the teacher. Indeed it would 
seem that his scientific precision and his power of lively 
presentation of facts and principles, were grounded in 
those remarkable qualities of the teacher which have 
impressed generations of the sons of Lafayette. 

But his books seldom represent the greater part of a 
scholar's activity. Some scholars — some of the great- 
est — are content to abstain entirely from employing this 



59 

form of publication. The limits of knowledge are, for 
the most part, pushed forward by the free interchange 
of the results of personal investigations through the 
channels of the technical journals, the publications of 
learned societies, the monograph and the like. A 
scholar is first and foremost a member of a community 
of investigators, seeking the truth and laboring to in- 
crease the sum of human knowledge and welfare. It is 
necessary therefore, that he keep in sympathetic com- 
munication with his fellow- craftsmen, and aid in the 
support and promotion of approved agencies to further 
his science. I^et us honor Prof. March for his ethical 
contribution to English scholarship. He has set a fault- 
less example of loyalty to a science ; he has never re- 
laxed his enthusiasm, or slackened in industry, nor has 
the ardor of his devotion to his subject ever cooled. 
With what untiring zeal has he not joined in every phil- 
ological enterprise that has had relations to English! 
And that participation has been attended by such favors 
of distinction as fall only to the share of acknowledged 
masters. He is the only American upon whom the 
Philological Society of London has bestowed member- 
ship ; and as a promoter of the Early English Text So- 
ciety, and afterwards as the agent to secure and direct 
American contributors to the great Oxford Dictionary, 
Professor March has generously and efficiently served 
projects that will help to mark the century. The 



6o 

annals of the American Philological Society and 
of the Modem Language Association of America tell a 
long story of unsurpassed faithfulness to duty, and he has 
served both organizations in the capacity of highest offi- 
cer. Up and down in the philological * ' literature ' ' of 
both the old and the new world, his name greets the eye, 
either in signature or in respectful reference, to attest 
that the quiet Professor on College Hill has the outlook 
and the fellowship of an active, influential and dis- 
tinguished citizen of the world. 

The subject of my remarks excludes the work of Pro- 
fessor March as a lexicographer, and that which as its 
chief he has bestowed upon the cause of Spelling Reform. 
What he has accomplished in either of these depart- 
ments would be enough to satisfy the ambition of most 
men. Nor, excluding these departments, shall I pre- 
sent a list of Professor March's contributions to the phil- 
ological records of the past forty years. The index to 
the annual volumes published by the American Philo- 
logical Society shows that Professor March's contribu- 
tions outnumber those of every other member of that 
organization. I^et me cite a few of the titles of these 
articles that you may have a fresh impression of the 
author's unremitting industry and wide range of inter- 
est. "Anglo-Saxon and Early English Pronunciation" 
(1871); "Is there an Anglo-Saxon Language?" (1872); 
"On some Irregular Verbs in Anglo-Saxon" (1872); 



6i 

"Recent Discussions of Grimm's I^aw" (1873); "On 
Dissimilated Gemination" (1877); ''^^^ Point of View 
in J^m£^ Lear'' (1880); "A Confession about Othello'' 
(1881); "The World of Beowulf" (1882); " The Har- 
monies of Verse" (1883); "The Personal Element in 
Dactylic Hexameters" (1883); "The Neo-Grammar- 
ians " ( 1885) ; "On Once-Used Words in Shakespeare ' ' 
(1886); "Standard English: its Pronunciation, how 
learned" (1889); "The Metre in Milton's Paradise 
Lost" (1889); "Studies in the Vocabularies of the 
English Poets" (1890); "I^aws of Language, with a 
word on Vemer's I^aw" (1891); "Time and Space in 
Word -Concepts" (1894). 

This partial list must not lead to a misapprehen- 
sion that would be removed by a complete biblio- 
graphy of Professor March's writings. These few 
titles have been cited for the purpose already named 
and for the further purpose of a text for the follow- 
ing remarks of a more technical character. But they 
also lead me into another digression, for no account of 
Professor March's work must pass slightingly by his 
Studies of the English poets. Every senior class of La- 
fayette has been stimulated by that study of a selected 
author which has been the crowning privilege in that 
memorable upper room in West College; and in no 
member of those classes will the finely discriminating 
argument of the articles just recalled as dealing with 



62 

the poets, fail to awaken echoes of the Master's voice. 
But it is not, I am sure, known to us all how much of 
his heart has always been held captive by the love of 
literature. As a lad he was an omnivorous reader, and 
after devouring the home Shakespeare together with 
everything else that came within reach, he found his 
way into the alcoves of the American Antiquarian Soci- 
ety by the time he reached the High School. In the 
High School he was playright to a "Thespian Club," 
winning local renown for the excellence of his plots and 
the dramatic fitness of his pentameters. At College he 
had the embarrassing reputation of being able to tell 
from memory where any quotation from Shakespeare 
was to be found. He was a prolific writer of College 
literature, a Latin colloquy, written by Faculty appoint- 
ment for exhibition, and a poem, marking his highest 
successes. Such were the early manifestations of the 
spirit which afterwards gave life to that notable teaching 
of English in lycicester Academy, and has so long gilded 
with light the walls of I^afayette College. But his Col- 
lege orations on '* The greatest happiness. Philosophy," 
and "God in Science," lift us by the force a superlative 
to what, after all, had quickened his deepest interest — 
the study of philosophy. This was also betrayed after- 
wards in the young student of law when in his first pub- 
lic discourse he attempted to expound ' ' The Relation of 
the Study of Jurisprudence to the Baconian Philosophy. ' ' 



63 

And this brings me, at last, to technical details. 
The grammarian was still the philosopher. The Anglo- 
Saxon Grammar was shaped by the philosopher's mode 
of thought ; in it a philosophic system is attempted, and 
a systematic body of rules set forth, grounding in the 
nature of the mind and speech organs. An attempt is 
made to refer every change in the formation and history 
of the declensions and conjugations to its proper place 
in the system. This attempt made it necessary to intro- 
duce the effects of accent and of ' ' conformation ' ' {anal- 
(>Sy) > which were then as good as absent from approved 
philology. They have since been the main lines of 
advance. If here and there the vocalic system of the 
Indian grammarians as adapted by Schleicher glints 
through, it is to be remembered that even Brugmann 
has not fully established his claim against the influence 
of the Compendium. Touching the most difficult prob- 
lems in comparative grammar and the science of lang- 
uage, such as the "shifting of consonants," the origin 
and function of ' * ablant ' , the relation between physio- 
logical and psychological processes, the range of anal- 
ogy, and the like. Professor March's grammar was one 
of the most original and suggestive treatises of its day. 
Its author had a prominent share in the friendly and co- 
operative philological controversies of that time (the 
gentle greatness of his spirit has always kept him aloof 
from those acrimonious quarrels which so many unquiet 



64 

philological souls liave, apparently, found necessary to 
the defense of their scientific rights), and his book 
and special articles won for him the fame of one of 
the most philosophic and penetrating reasoners on facts 
of language. Before the discovery of Verner's I^aw, 
the Anglo-Saxon Grammar contained marvelous approx- 
imations to the rightful place of accent in grammar, and 
Professor March's article, already cited, "On Recent 
Discussions of Grimm's lyaw," published four years 
before Verner startled the philological world, is to be 
classed as one of the most significant forerunners of that 
event. 

In 1885 Professor March, in his own way, styled him- 
self "a junggrammatiker of a primaeval period." That 
is a note of pleasantry that we would not miss ; but to 
speak accurately and with becoming recognition of his 
scientific career, we must declare that his work proves 
with special force and clearness the unbroken continuity 
that links together the decades of the history of science. 
With the true scientific temper that holds a man in his 
pure devotion to progress, he has calmly, yet ardently, 
kept pace with everj^ step, welcoming the new with 
grateful remembrance of the old which has made possi- 
ble the new. 

But I must close abruptly. The names of Whitney, 
Child, March and Gildersleeve — greatest on the roll of 
American philologists — will embellish a page of our 



65 

national history. Our nation and the world will approve 
the honor we pay to-day to Professor March, — a master 
among men of science, and a pattern of true nobility of 
life, our revered teacher and our beloved friend, 
" thro' all this tract of years 
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life." 



PROFESSOR MARCH'S RESPONSE. 
' ' J WISH I could express my thanks for all the kind- 
nesses of to-day , A college professor has a good posi- 
tion — for friends. New troops arrive each year to keep 
him always young ; and when he reaches his jubilee he 
finds he has a wonderful unearned increment. Here 
are great men — Representatives, Senators, maybe a Gov- 
ernor, Mayors, Judges, great lawyers and doctors, heads 
of railroad corporations, manufacturers, inventors, dis- 
coverers, authors, teachers — all sorts of eminences. The 
I^afayette professor of forty years ago has also the 
unearned increment from the growth of the institution. 
The corporation grows, the professor grows with it. I 
find also surprising advance from having a department 
dealing with an opening field like the English language. 
One is also happy in an earnest pursuit of something 
useful to mankind. We look to the future. We like to 
help our alma mater. The scholar's foster mother by 
eminence is his mother tongue ; and one has a peculiar 
delight in doing anything to improve it, to make our 
English more simple, symmetrical, convenient, beautiful. 
In youth new views are often forced upon us by others 
so rapidly and vigorously that we think each last one 
proves all the others false. It is delightful to find as one 
grows old that progress is not destruction , but building 



68 

up. The more we know, the more we enjoy simple 
truths, elementary knowledge. We see them in their 
environment. Each generation prizes higher than the 
last, Homer, Shakespeare, the Bible, the blessed record 
of God's providence and promises." 



ALMA MATER. 

By William Hayes Ward, D.D., IvI,.D. 

T VERY mucli regret that it is impossible for President 
Gates to be here to-day to represent Amherst College, 
and express the pride and satisfaction of Professor March's 
Alma Mater in the honor which one of its most distin- 
guished sons has done her during these fifty years since 
his graduation. But President Gates has been called to 
preside to-day over the meeting of one of our large be- 
nevolent societies, and he has deputed me to say for him 
what he could have said much better. 

You, of lyafayette College, have the right in Professor 
March of immediate, present possession. We, of Am- 
herst College, have the earlier right of his sonship and 
training. With us he developed his character and genius, 
and, if his health had allowed him to remain so far 
north, we should have enforced our claim to keep him as 
one of our own instructors. But when that might not 
be, we were glad that I^afayette had such an Amherst 
man to teach the best wisdom to her students. 

I entered Amherst College eleven years after Professor 
March. In that time college tradition ordinarily forgets 
its heroes. But such was not the case with March. His 
name was remembered and still repeated, as that of the 
man who was the most remarkable scholar among many 



70 

fine scholars. He was remembered as the man whose 
scholarship was limited by no lesson bounds and no pro- 
fessional instruction, but whose studies and learning far 
transcended all the college curriculum. While the class 
was reading painfully — so the tradition went — one play 
of Aeschylus or Euripides, or one oration of Demosthenes — 
he would read them all, just for the pleasure of it. And 
equally extraordinary — so the tradition averred — was 
his literary knowledge and power. No such acquaintance 
with the masters of English literature, or no such strength 
and skill in writing had been known within the limits of 
tradition as were ascribed to him. We could not tell 
how much glamour and exaggeration there might be 
about all this, but the career of Professor March has now 
justified every story, and we can easily believe them all. 
I suppose that Amherst College cannot properly claim 
to have made Professor March. A college takes the 
more or less plastic mind brought to it, and shapes it as 
well as it can. It can do much, but if the man turns out 
a genius, he brought the stuff of genius with him to col- 
lege, and if he turns out a dolt, it is usually because the 
lump of clay was not big enough to fashion anything 
else. Socrates refused to accept any merit or blame for 
the after-life of his pupils. Indeed he was unwilling to 
call them disciples. From him they had heard good 
things, but whether the scholar turned out a Plato or an 
Alcibiades, a philosopher or a fool, belonged to the realm 



71 

of a man's own imperial will, or his equally imperious 
native endowment. The youth with the best natural 
ability brings more than others to his teachers and learns 
more : and yet in his care the teacher can perhaps claim 
a smaller fraction in his development than in the care of 
others less prodigally endowed. I imagine that such a 
youth as Professor March was, while he learns more 
from his teachers, is yet more independent of them than 
are others. He needs no prodding, no encouragement 
from others to stimulate his ambition. The gadfly is 
within him, and right or wrong, he will keep his pace, it 
may be, as I doubt not it was with young March at Am- 
herst, often far beyond any instruction he could have re- 
ceived from his teachers. 

Nevertheless, in all the honor which has come to Pro- 
fessor March during these fifty years since his graduation 
Amherst claims her share. We have seen him fulfil the 
promise of his undergraduate success. We have seen 
him become one of the leaders of American scholarship. 
There are such leaders, a very few of them, that produce 
what we may call schools of followers. Such a man Har- 
vard had in Agassiz and Childs. Such a man Yale had 
in Whitney. Such a man Lafayette is proud to have in 
March, who stood for many years by the side of Whit- 
ney, the two taking different fields in philology, but 
allowed brotherly distinction above all others. It has 
been the privilege of Professor March to do among us 



72 

here in America, for the English language and its allied 
tongues what Whitney did for Sanscrit. He has shown 
us that English has a great history, and that it must be 
studied historically, and the stream must be followed 
back to its Anglo-Saxon fountains. With all this dry 
linguistic detail he has not forgotten to maintain his mas- 
tership in the literary side of English studies, and no 
man has a keener sense of the beautiful and the good as 
well as of the scientifically true. That old breadth of 
culture which marked him in his boyhood studies has 
given him his strength ever since. We have thought 
that no field of study was foreign to him, just as philol- 
ogy and science were equally familiar to his brother 
Whitney. 

Amherst College, which knew March young rejoices 
that he keeps a perennial youth. That is to be expected 
in a broad culture like his, where no part gets dwarfed 
or decrepit. He is a reformer — he cannot help it — and 
he wants reform in the very line of his special studies, in 
the writing of the English language. As representing 
the youth of the land Amherst College thanks him for 
what he is doing to save our youth from the useless toil 
of years in learning to read and spell the language. She 
thanks him for trying to lift that fearful burden from the 
necks of our children ; and she thanks him equally for 
trying to give us a historical spelling, one that shall give 
the actual progressive history of our mother tongue. 



73 

She thanks him for the special work he has done in his 
own particular field of study and research; but she 
thanks him most for himself, for his simple, pure, schol- 
arly Christian life. Amherst is proud to number among 
her sons the leading English scholar and philologist of 
the country, and I am glad to have the opportunity this 
afternoon, in behalf of that college, to unite with you of 
I^afayette, in doing him honor. 



THE TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 

By Rev. John Fox, D.D., '72. 

/CONSIDERING the lateness of the hour, the length 
of the program, and the fact that the Athletic 
event of the day is now upon us — in which as we have been 
told Dr. March is greatly interested — many of the audi- 
ence may be disposed to cry out with Romeo in the play, 
*' Hang up Philosophy." Nevertheless I can not alto- 
gether forebear saying what ought to be said upon such 
a theme as the one assigned to me — ** The Teacher of 
Philosophy." 

No man can be a teacher of philosophy unless he is a 
philosopher himself. Our teacher has shown himself 
such in the truest and broadest use of the word, — as one 
of the speakers said this morning, as a grammarian he 
is a philosopher. Nothing has been more characteristic 
of his treatment of all the subjects he has touched than 
the philosophical spirit in which he has handled even 
the lightest of them. This is the real secret of his 
power. *' March's Method of English Study," is a 
philosophical method, and therefore the best method. 
But it is, I suppose, of his teaching philosophy in the 
narrower sense, as a metaphysician and psychologist 
that I am expected to speak. I have always thought 
that it required genius to be able to teach college students 



76 

metaphysics. To get them interested in English litera- 
ture is not so difficult. The young collegian coming up 
the hill, after an evening with some fair dame in Eas- 
ton and with her image in his eyes, might perhaps care 
for that which would enable him to compose a sonnet 
to his mistress' eyebrow, but when he is confronted with 
that popular primer of great philosophical doctrine (used 
when I was at college), Haven's Mental Philosophy, 
and remembers that he will have to recite next morning 
on the question of sense perception, or the nature of 
space, he too will be likely to say "Hang up Philoso- 
phy," and add the rest of the line, " unless philosophy 
can make a Juliet." It has been Professor March's 
distinction as a teacher of philosophy, that he has been 
able to show its beauty even to the beginner. Many a 
scholar sitting at his feet has learned to say with Milton 
— it is, I think, one of Dr. March's favorite quotations — 
** How charming is divine philosopiiy, 

Not harshed or crabbed as dull fools suppose 

But musical as is Apollo's lute." 

Such results as he has achieved in the class-room 
would be impossible to any but a great teacher. Since 
leaving college I have seen Dr. McCosh in his class- 
room, sat under the teachings of Dr. Chas. Hodge, and 
known familiarly his wonderful son, Dr. Archibald 
Hodge, besides others of the Princeton school and with- 
out abating at all the reverence I feel for them as teach- 



77 

ers, I have not lost the feeling I had when I left Dr. 
March, now more than twenty years ago, that he is the 
greatest teacher of philosophy known to me. Such re- 
sults as he has achieved in the class-room would not be 
possible to any but a great master of high thinking, 
able to take and keep his place among the leaders of 
philosophical thought. We have all known his attain- 
ments in philology, where his fame is our delight and 
pride, but the very greatness of his achievements in such 
studies has to some extent eclipsed his reputation as a 
metaphysical philosopher, so that his distinction in the 
realm of philosophy is not known to many of his pupils. 
The list of articles and books of various kinds from his 
pen bearing upon the study of language, given by Dr. 
Bright, this morning, ought to be supplemented by the 
mention of two articles published in the Princeton Re- 
view in i860. They were upon Sir William Hamilton's 
Theory of Perception ; and his Philosophy of the Condi- 
tioned. I mentioned these articles some time ago to 
President Warfield, when I met him in New York, and 
from the answer he made it seemed as if he supposed 
the latter one (on the Philosophy of the Conditioned) to 
refer to some part of the Freshman class. When they 
are conditioned no doubt they do need all their philoso- 
phy. College presidents must nod sometimes, and no 
doubt Dr. Warfield was taking a mental census of the 
new-comers, as it was not long after matriculation. It 



78 

only shows that where a man's treasure is, there his heart 
will be also. These articles were published anonymously, 
and it illustrates Dr. March's method as a teacher that 
he once put them into my hands when I was a post- 
graduate student (studying much with him) , and asked 
me to read them, and the next time we met, in his house, 
he drew out from me my comments and crude criticisms 
upon their meaning. Not at all suspecting their author- 
ship, I said to him that they seemed strangely familiar 
somehow, and asked him if it were known at all who 
their author was ; 5^ou who know his ways will appre- 
ciate just how he looked (and just how I felt) as he said, 
" Why, I wrote them." It is impossible here to describe 
these charming disquisitions. It would be a most desira- 
ble outcome of to-day's exercises, if with Dr. March's 
consent, they could be reprinted, not only for philosophers 
to study, but for his pupils to read as evidences, new 
to most of them of his power of logical analysis, keen 
penetration, and lucid simplicity of philosophical diction, 
making the rough places of metaphysics plain and the 
crooked places straight with his strong Saxon style. 
It will be gratifying to you, as it is to me, to know that 
their merit was immediately recognized on both sides 
of the Atlantic. Dr. Chas. Hodge, Dr. Archibald Hodge, 
their illustrious compeer and in some ways rival, Dr. 
Henry B. Smith, of the Union Seminary, spoke in high 
praise. Dr. McCosh, then of Belfast, soon after came 



79 

to this country on a visit and came to Kaston to see their 
author and on his accepting the presidency, of Princeton 
College sought (tho' happily in vain) to transfer him to 
that institution. Dean Mansell, the foremost scholar of 
the Hamilton School of Philosophy, recognized their 
power ; and Cousin wrote from France asking the author 
to edit the American edition of his own philosophical 
works. It delights us to-day to know that two anony- 
mous articles republished (tho' still anonymously) across 
the sea, were sufficient to admit this 3^oung teacher to 
the peerage of high philosophy, and to give him rank 
and standing ever since among the accredited masters. 
The recital of these facts is enough to show us v/hat 
most of us were probably unaware of at the time, that 
during our college days we were privileged to sit under 
the benign influence of a great philosophic genius, whose 
mind habitually roved in the track of great truths, and 
translated them in a style so simple that few of us sus- 
pected how great our privilege was. It is told of Beet- 
hoven that he continually kept before him on his table 
an inscription from some old temple in words like these, 
* * I am the great unseen God ; no mortal dare my veil 
uplift. ' ' No doubt those strange tones in his music that 
seem to breathe forth eternity and immensity, are due to 
the presence in his mind of such thoughts. When Dr. 
March teaches philosophy — in these articles for instance, 
and it was so in the class-room — there was some thing in his 



8o 

treatment of its most abstruse problems which mysteri- 
ously suggested the background of all thought — the in- 
finite, absolute, eternal God. Teaching philosophy, he 
taught theology also, with the touch of a master and the 
simplicity of a little child. * ' These regions of thought, ' ' 
so he wrote me recently, * ' have been my cherisht ones 
even before my college days." 

Let me, before I sit down, read you a single para- 
graph from the articles of which I have spoken, for they 
give us a picture of the mental life of the man. *' I often 
amuse myself in the twilight by travelling in perception 
from a bright star, to a fainter, then still farther to a 
fainter one, trying to make real each receding distance, 
till I feel as tho' penetrating the depths of space, when 
suddenly my eye rests upon the landscape before my 
window — the far reaching vista, hill behind plain, fad- 
ing away into indistinguishable mountain and cloud, 
where the river threads its way." It is delightful to us 
who can not sit here at his feet and look at his well loved 
hills and rivers, to know that in the evening of his days 
— long may it still continue — his thoughts may return 
again and again to the same regions of thought which 
he preferred in youth, in happy contemplation still cher- 
ishing high thoughts. We, whom he taught to love 
truth for its own sake, will love her all the more for his 
sake who gave us our first glimpses of her everlasting 
beauty. 



?8 

u-. in 
3? w 




Dr. march as A PHILOLOGIST. 

By Rev. S. G. Barnes, Ph.D., lyitt.D., '73. 

A^R. Prhsidknt and Friknds : A philologist is ety- 
mologically a lover of words, of language, of dis- 
course. In one sense our subject to-day could not 
properly be thus described ; if he had been born among 
the Indians, they never would have given him the name, 
"Man fond of Big Talk." When I received the pro- 
gram of this occasion, and imagined our modest Profes- 
sor sitting from " morn to noon, from noon to dewey 
eve, ' ' and listening all the time to talk about himself, 
my heart failed me for him. How would he ever live 
through it ? Surely if the spirit that entered the world 
seventy years ago could have had prevision of this day, it 
would have incontinently elected for its birthplace some 
other country, perhaps Ian Maclaren's Drumtochty, 
where they cultivate the austere wisdom of silence. 

But there are compensations ; there always are com- 
pensations. Mere, unmitigated admiration is very em- 
barrassing to a modest man, as we all know. But this 
day's utterance goes much deeper than admiration ; it 
is the expression of a warm and united affection. And 
that makes a great difference. The love of love is innate 
in every generous mind, and so must be strong in our 
philologist. Three score years and ten is a time when 



83 

" lionor, love, obedience, troops of friends" may well 
liave become a familiar environment. I fear, indeed, 
tbat to-day our Professor will feel mucb like saying with 
Hamlet, "Some thing toomucb of this' ' ; lie may even sym- 
pathize with the thirsty sailor who was dropped into the 
mouth of the Amazon to get his drink. But after it is 
all over, it will surely give him joy to remember these 
things. 

To return to my text, a philologist is a lover of words, 
and we all of us soon learned that Professor March was 
an ardent and life-long lover of words. He taught us 
to recognize fully that words were in one sense the wise 
man's counters, arbitrary signs of ideas, wholly secon- 
dary to the thought they expressed. The ability to say 
in half a dozen languages " How is 3^our health to-day?" 
was never held up to us as representing any true or 
valuable education. But he and we were more inter- 
ested in the other aspect of words, in which they are 
seen as having life and history. A word is a vocable, 
all of whose changes in sound are to be formulated un- 
der laws, and traced to causes in man's nature and en- 
vironment. It is the bearer of a meaning which has 
often changed greatly from age to age, every change re- 
vealing some characteristic of man's mind, or some de- 
tail of his experience. A pupil of Prof. March, in con- 
sulting the dictionary, looks as naturally to the deriva- 
tion of a word as to its present meaning ; it is almost 



83 

automatic with him to notice whether the word is from 
the Anglo-Saxon, the Greek, or the lyatin. And his 
knowledge that words have had a long and varied his- 
tory frees him from the would-be despotism of the purist 
who is ignorant of everything but the literary present. 

But man as society is much greater than as an individual, 
and words in connected speech are much more signifi- 
cant than as isolated entities. We came under the 
guidance of our teacher to recognize that speech has its 
anatomy, its physiology, and its evolution. We be- 
came skillful dissectors of sentences according to the 
diagrams of the * * Parser and Analyser, ' ' able to put 
every word and phrase into its appropriate pigeon hole. 
We came to see in speech something that lived before 
our eyes, and to discover in it a marvelous variety and 
complexity of function. In the Anglo-Saxon grammar 
we found these various functions and relations arranged 
for us in categories that showed not only the order of 
the grammarian, but the insight of the psychologist. 
And so we gradually were made capable of tracing the 
history of our language, back through Anglo-Saxon 
and Gothic ; we learned to hold friendly conference with 
lyatin and Greek and Sanscrit as to their degree of re- 
lationship with us, and even strained our eyes to discern 
the vague forms moving in the twilight regions of the 
parent speech. 

So there grew in us all, even the dullest of us, some 



84 

sense of the power and mystery of language, some ap- 
preciation of its subtle and wonderful life, incapable of 
full analysis, defying all attempts at adequate statement. 
We saw in it a mirror, in which was reflected all man's 
knowledge of himself and of the nature about him, the 
most important result of his past labors, the most impor- 
tant help in all his future achievement. " Our truest 
alma mater is our mother tongue." We came to see, 
also how this power of language is an essential part of 
man's highest power; how this ability of man to look at 
himself and to speak of himself, to draw all nature into 
his own experience and to give it names, is an essential 
part of that hold upon himself and his world, which 
makes it possible for him to know God. We could 
understand as never before why Jesus Christ is called 
" the Word," a mirror of both God and man, revealing 
to man what man is in God's plan, and what God is in 
all his relations to man. 

Professor March has never volunteered many words 
about religion ; he seldom led in chapel, and his teach- 
ing of the epistle to the Romans was our main opportu- 
nity to know his religious convictions. But none of us 
ever doubted that far above all his enthusiasms for lan- 
guage or philosophy, for art or science, was his loyalty 
to our di\'ine Savior, a loyalty which words were feeble 
to express. But life could, and life has, — this life of 
forty blameless and devoted christian years among us. 



85 

And that is the deepest and sweetest note in the affec- 
tionate tribute his scholars bring him to-day. 

Gen. Armstrong, when on the platform of the Ameri- 
can Board, and speaking of his obligations to its presi- 
dent and his teacher. Dr. Hopkins, turning to him, 
said : ** Whether we fight with bibles or with bayonets, 
you are always our honored leader." Many of Profes- 
sor March's pupils have gone out to teach English, and 
have rejoiced to think of themselves as his intellectual 
sons. Many have gone out to preach the gospel, and 
have been no less sure of being in harmony with the 
supreme enthusiasms of his life. And whatever we have 
been called to do, whether to us the English language 
has been a field of instruction or a medium of the truth 
most needed by men, all of us have been glad to acknowl- 
edge our great and constant obligation to the man whom 
we honor as one of the greatest of philologists, and the 
philologist whom we loved as one of the truest of men. 



Dr. march as A SPELLING REFORMER. 

By Rev. Samuel A. Martin, D.D., '77. 
President of Wilson College. 

T F I had been consulted I would not have chosen this 
theme, not because I do not believe in reformed spell- 
i«ig, for I do, but because it is not yet in condition to 
make a good appearance in public. It is in a transition 
state, and transition states don't show up well. I believe 
in reformed spelling as I believe in clean linen, but the 
man who appears in public in a transition state as to his 
linen is apt to provoke unfavorable remark. 

This scheme must be judged not by appearances but 
by great principles of truth and beauty. I believe in it, 
first, because it is scriptural, for example in its dealing 
with those troublesome words in ei or ie, — believe, re- 
ceive, etc. — no man since the fall is quite sure where to 
put the i. Now what saith the Scriptures ? * * If thine / 
offend thee pluck it out, ' ' and spell with the e alone. Sec- 
ond: I believe in this scheme because it is approved by 
the enlightened conscience. Not long ago I had to re- 
view a sermon by a young brother who made frequent 
and vigorous mention of a place which he spelled h-e-1. 
I remarked that I had usually seen a double consonant 
in hell; and he profanely answered that he would be 
pleased to see them all there. Again I favor reformed 



88 

Spelling because it " makes the unskilful" laugh without 
" making the judicious grieve," thus adding mirth to 
the somewhat funereal pages of the spelling book. You 
have doubtless all read the sad story of the bereaved 
husband who ordered placed upon his wife's tombstone 
the pious legend " lyord, she was thine." But the re- 
formed stone-cutter omitted the final e — quite properly 
for the final e must go, and the ignorant unlearned read 
" I^ord, she was thin." For these and even better rea- 
sons, I am most heartily in favor of this reform. I se- 
riously hold that the impetus which Dr. March has given 
to this cause will, a few years hence, be regarded as one 
of his most valuable contributions to human progress. 
I have strong faith in the common sense of the English 
speaking peoples. In spite of the present football craze, 
the A. P. A. and Trilby, I still have faith to hope that 
the day is not far distant when the imbecility, absurdity, 
and monstrous tyranny of our conventional spelling will 
be no longer tolerated, when the spelling-book — that 
bane of our childhood, burden of our youth and bore of 
mankind — will be cast to the moles and bats ; unknown, 
save to the shelves of museums, where it will have its 
proper place with the stone axe and arrow heads of flint 
and jasper, the relics of a rude and barbarous age. 

Meanwhile let me say that I regard as greatest of our 
beloved professor's achievements in the line of spelling 
reform, the fact that he has compelled a conservative and 



89 

Stubborn people to spell Knglisb with a big E, When 
we remember what was called study of Englisb forty 
years ago, and see what it is to-day ; when we consider 
how much of this is due to him whom we bored in class- 
room, praise to-day, and love always, we are gratified to 
feel that here is an achievement great enough to satisfy 
an ambition vaster than any he allows to lodge in his 
great heart. 



DR. MARCH AS A TEACHER. 

By Rev. James C. Mackenzie, Ph.D., '78. 

lA/HO shall do for Dr. March what Dean Stanley did 
for Arnold, Ernst Renan for Bishop Dupanloup, 
Cotton Mather for Ezekiel Cheever, what Dimmock did 
for Francis Gardner ? Surely in a paper of ten minutes 
no adequate estimate can be made of one who is felt to 
be one of the notable teachers of this country. But we 
may rejoice that a worthy study of Dr. March's work at 
Lafayette will enrich our pedagogical and biographical 
literature in the near future. Our present privilege is 
merely to suggest some thoughts that spring up almost 
unbidden. 

One of his favorite authors, John Milton, in the tract 
on education, says that all true teachers are natural ^ 
practical and noble. In theology the cry is ' * back to 
Christ," and in education it is ''back to nature." This 
demand is but another form of the insistence that men 
who would teach must have the natural gifts. If Car- 
lyle be right, that the teacher is the modern priest, then 
he must be called and ordained, and the proof of his min- 
istry must be sought in his sympathy with nature and 
her processes. We have not at hand the record of Dr. 
March's life and work at Swanzey, I^eicester, Amherst, 
and Fredericksburg, but we are sure the boys and girls 



92 

whom he taught in these early years were profoundly 
impressed with his naturalness, practicableness, and 
nobleness. Certainly those of us who came under his 
influence here find it impossible to think of him without 
the possession of these Miltonic and altogether necessary 
qualities. If we should go on to question ourselves 
further, we would recall his great simplicity. I know of 
no writer whose style more perfectly reveals his charac- 
ter, simple, direct, noble — inestimable virtues in a 
teacher. In my day a man read a paper on some philo- 
sophical subject assigned by Dr. March. The perform- 
ance was diffuse and prolix, so that the Doctor asked the 
young man to state orally his ideas. Something in the 
old recitation-room over the treasurer's office, or some- 
thing in the penetrating eye of the teacher compelled 
simplicity an ungamished truth ; so that the young man's 
oral statement won the encomium, "O! but why didn't 
you say just that in your paper." There was nothing 
of the "Jupiter tonans" of Dr. Taylor in Dr. March, — 
the "majesty throned afar," which one feels impelled 
to approach in a borrowed or unreal garb. He was so 
ingenuous, open-minded, and tolerant of early ignorance 
that nature's best was stirred in every pupil. What an 
encouragement it was to us in our first efforts at origi- 
nality of any sort to be told that * ' there never was a pair 
of eyes made not worth looking through." 

Any proper estimate of Dr. March's teaching will 



93 

make much of his profound and wide scholarship. In 
every recitation, at every lecture, it is a first requisite 
that the teacher be known as thoroughly furnished. A 
minister may maintain himself by the purity and spirit- 
uality of his life, as well as by, or independent of, mere 
intellectual endowments or power to fertilize other 
minds. But not so the teacher — the man who is to be 
revered as an intellectual father. It is probably rare, if 
not wholly exceptional, that in a faculty as famous as 
I^afayette's has been, one man should be so esteemed 
among his distinguished colleagues as Dr. March has 
been, for we recall with just pride such names as Junkin, 
McCarthy, Gross, the two Greens, McCay, Cofi&n, the 
two Porters, and Coleman, not to speak of others still 
with us. Surely among such men honors were not 
easy. It was a vast intellectual influence that at every 
recitation such a fountain of learning was accessible, no 
matter whether the exercise were one in politics, econom- 
ics, philosophy, philology, literature, or the scriptures. 
Not that we were aware of the world's early and con- 
stant recognition as set forth by Professor CofiBin in his 
long list of degrees, offices and publications ; and sug- 
gested by the various titles of to-day's speeches and ad- 
dresses. The best of it was, we were never surprised at 
any new honor that came from Europe or America, for 
we knew he richly deserved it. As to the range of his 
scholarship for teaching purposes, the younger I^afayette 



94 

men and the outside public are doubtless not fully in- 
formed. I^afayette boys of the fifties and sixties tell of 
his work in I^atin and Greek, and so recently as the 
seventies he taught Political Economy, the Epistle to 
the Romans, Story on the Constitution of the United 
States, Blackstone's Commentaries, Mental Philosophy, 
besides the wide range of studies included under the 
head of English. And here we may gratefully and ad' 
miringly note that he equipped himself for this monu- 
mental work and carried it on with conspicuous fidelity 
and regularity notwithstanding the fact that no reputa- 
ble insurance company would accept him as a risk. 
Though his pen was always busy with his specialty, a 
wide and sound reading in many other departments was 
carried on. In all this he is the best kind of example 
and influence to our teachers who are too prone to be 
narrow and barren. Every teacher trained by Dr. March 
must have been powerfully influenced by this cheracter- 
istic of the man. No matter how long the hours, how 
large the schedule, we feel that breadth, depth and 
growth of scholarship are possible because Dr. March 
has shown them to be possible. Scholarship in our 
colleges is to suffer an irreparable injury when the 
present generation of younger men are well seated in the 
professorial chairs and are unhampered by the counsel 
and example of such teachers as Woolsey, Hopkins, 
Atwater and March. Thecolossal blunder that threatens 



95 

US is the idea that the average freshman and sophomore 
is forthwith to be made an "original investigator" and 
needs the "direction" of a specialist. We have not 
been quite brave enough in this country, but at Oxford 
and in Germany they have taken the census, and the 
world is told that 70 per cent, of even university students 
are idlers who need stated duties and constant drill 
under broadly furnished men having the imperative 
ideals of Christian citizenship before them, rather than 
the exceptional needs of the specialist. Those of us who 
are of the educational cult must bear in mind that we 
are to translate into society not college lifCy but college 
men. Something of this view of the matter must have 
prompted that confession of President Woolsey 's : * ' Had 
I my life to begin over again, I would throw in my lot 
with one of the smaller colleges where I could have more 
influence in training mind and shaping character." 

In these hurried considerations we have unintention- 
ally anticipated a consideration of Dr. March's /^^<^^^^2- 
cal methods. I may say at the outset that no teacher as 
richly equipped as Dr. March is can be content to lec- 
ture — "to lubricate every morsal of truth with professorial 
palaver," — to use his own expression. Avery king 
among teachers, he never to my knowledge delivered to 
a class a formal lecture. He once said : " Our students 
are made to write their own lectures." He knew that 
* ' life comes only from life, ' ' and so he sought contact 



96 

with, tlie learner at as many points as possible. Hence 
he wanted to be free to run to his aid at every intel- 
lectual emergency. During these forty years of service 
his conduct of a recitation appears to have remained 
quite unchanged. The best text-book available is 
selected and each day a stated portion of it is assigned 
to be faithfully prepared by each man. At times, as- 
suming a general familiarity with the lesson assigned, 
it is laid out in the class-room in longitudinal sections, 
as it were, for an orderly treatment in solid bars. But 
as a rule, the seriatim method is followed, and Ratich's 
pregnant dictum is ever regarded — ' ' Repetitio Mater 
Studiorumy Of course neither he nor the class is con- 
fined to the text-book. His pupils are gently compelled 
to read widely and write fully and often. Dr. March's 
own commentary upon every phase of the subject is so 
luminous, scholarly, original that the healthy man did 
not need to be told to take notes ; but such notes were 
not in modern parlance a ** syllabus" to be bought 
from a professional note-taker or crammed into an 
inert brain at the end of a semester. They were the 
profound readings and the fertilizing thoughts of a per- 
sonal friend whose bodily presence, tones of voice, and 
twinkle of eye helped to make the subject under 
consideration an integral part of the learner's intel- 
lectual life. 
Of course I realize that the great increase of numbers 



97 

at our larger colleges and universities precludes largely 
the recitation method of work. But this cannot justify 
the lecture method as it is now used in our colleges. It 
serves only to challenge any increase of students with- 
out a corresponding increase of teachers. The greatest 
Teacher chose only twelve pupils. Mr. Garfield's idea 
of a college was not far wrong. It is better like March 
and Hopkins, to lead by the hand a few men to the tree 
of life than like a sign board to point a multitude to the 
woods of knowledge. The fatal heresy is in forgetting 
that the instructor is always of more worth than his in- 
struction. 

It is germane to a consideration of such methods as those 
of Dr. March's to state what must be quite familiar to many 
here that our colleges are apparently losing their hold 
upon the earnest brain workers of the country, although 
they are attracting the wealthy and idle classes in larger 
numbers. The United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion tells us that of students of theology only 22 per 
cent., of students of law only 21.7 per cent., and of 
medicine only 10 per cent, have the bachelor's degree in 
arts or sciences. In view of such facts it is surely our 
business to make a collegiate career more attractive and 
more necessary, not only to thoughtful young men, but 
also in particular to the public. Now I believe pro- 
foundly that the lecture system, displacing as it is the 
recitation system, of work in our colleges, is failing to 



98 

achieve the results which have exalted such men and 
their instruction as Arnold, Hopkins, Seeley, Wayland, 
Woolsey, Atwater, Hodge and March. Who shall say 
how much laboratory methods with all their delightful 
personal contact of teacher and pupil in science teaching 
have had to do with the growing popularity of scientific 
courses ? The lecturer who keeps his pupils at arm's 
length and sterilizes talent and industry, ' ' successfully 
vaccinates his pupils against any serious love of learn- 
ing, imparting only a chicken-pox form of the thing." 
And we must bear in mind that educational methods as 
well as reforms work from above down, from our colleges 
to our schools. Often in my experience I have had to 
discourage the flights of a would-be lecturer in the 
school-room where the methods of Orbilius and 
Busby were far more needed than a "syllabus of 
the treatment. ' ' Every college-bred man must have felt 
something more than anger a few years ago when the 
National Educational Association voted to exclude all 
college professors from the direction of that great organi- 
zation. 

Although I have not stuck very closely to Milton's 
qualities, I must not close without speaking of the third, 
nobleness. Dr. Youngman used to say that KaWo$ 
KayaSos meant Christian gentleman. But the homely 
English of Milton suits our sense of things a trifle bet- 
ter. Dr. March is noble; one of God's and nature's 



99 

noblemen, and this fact lies at the bottom of all our 
affection and reverence for him as a teacher. A great 
school is only a great person, and for a hundred years 
the American colleges have been great and good because 
of the presence in them of great and goO& men. The 
noble teacher is for the pupil the priest standing between 
the present and the past, the living and the dead ; he is 
* ' the lens through which truth pours itself into young 
souls ; ' ' the window through which young eyes look out 
on human life. Such a man in school or college — and 
thrice blessed is the institution that has him — helps his 
pupils to * ' break the shell and snap the cords and set 
free" whatever he possesses of nobleness. 

Speaking of those personal traits which are so power- 
ful in a teacher, I should say, Dr. March is one of the 
frankest men and yet one of the most reserved. When 
it was best, he was the most patient of mortals, but we 
can all recall his impatience with inexcusable ignorance. 
He is one of those earnest men whose deepest beliefs 
nobody knows — at one moment a sentimentalist, at the 
next a cynic. Who can forget his banishing out-of-the 
window glance ? And yet how hearty, how exuberant 
his sense of humor ! 

No man is great till he has suffered, and no 
teacher is great till he has sacrificed in some way 
to do his work. It is proper here only to hint at 
the sacrifices which a few men have made for this 



dear college, — ^Junkin, Cattell, Coleman, Coffin, Por- 
ter and March. Dr. March's sacrifices extend 
over a long period and have been borne in the face 
of the most alluring opportunities elsewhere. I think 
this has been an element, a large factor in the splendid 
success he has won. And another factor should be men- 
tioned for the help — or shall I say the warning ? — of 
teachers and professors. Dr. March has been a royal, 
a helpful colleague in this faculty. Lafayette has not 
with all her prayer and piety escaped some faculty dis- 
sensions. But every administration, whatever its char- 
acter, has found Dr. March cooperative, loyal, unselfish ; 
and this quality of colleagueship has included what is 
probably the severest test — attendance upon morning 
prayers, until advancing years justified some exemption. 
And now following the example of another pupil of a 
great master — Thomas Hughes — I prefer to leave Dr. 
March at our Chapel door — I trust a fitting close to this 
imperfect sketch. But this final picture shall be of his 
own drawing because it unconsciously revels so much 
of his own beautiful, noble soul, and his conception of 
the best college ideals. Speaking of Chapel attendance, 
on one occasion, he said: "Compulsory attendance on 
prayers and preaching is a special object of attack. But 
it is almost a misnomer to call the college discipline 
compulsion. It is nothing like so strong as the obliga- 
tions of professional life, or the tyranny of fashion, or 



lOI 

social habits, or home influence. A college student is 
about the freest man there is. It is certainly a pleasant 
sight to see our college now, bathed and breakfasted 
and ready for recitations, gathering at morning prayers. 
Our beautiful hill, bright in the early sun, the valley 
lying in rosy mist with the rivers glinting through, the 
great mountains looking on as though they liked the 
looks, the white smokes curling upward from hearths of 
homes that may be temples, the spired fingers of the 
churches pointing heavenward, the college campus with 
its hundred paths, all leading to the college chapel, the 
hundreds of young men rejoicing in the morning and in 
nature around them, which is in itself a liberal educa- 
tion, and gathering to offer a morning tribute of thanks 
and praise to the Giver of all good and ask Him for 
stout hearts and clear heads for the labors of the day and 
for the scholar's blessing, the pure heart that shall see 
God — is a sight worth seeing. It is impossible to believe 
that it can be a burden to any. I have seen many gen- 
erations of college students grow up and pass through 
life and am fully satisfied that the habit of attendance on 
religious exercises in colleges has been a most powerful 
influence for good. I believe it still, I trust it still. 
After all the proper work of college is to make Chris- 
tian men of sound culture. It is not so much to de- 
velop genius ; genius in the teens is either omniverous 
or stupid, and either way considers professors a bore. 
It is to prepare our youth to discharge the duties of good 
citizens." 



ADDRESS OF REV. JOHN R. DAVIES, D.D., OF '8i. 
TT is always pleasant for the student to visit his Alma 
Mater, but especially so upon such a day as this 
when all nature is radiant with the glory of God and 
when strong and loving hands are laying wreath after 
wreath upon the brow of him who is known upon both 
sides of the sea as the foremost of Anglo-Saxon scholars. 
The theme assigned to me demands that I speak from 
the standpoint of the student, and therefore I must go 
back into other days and call from the past facts and 
faces which for some of us have long since faded out of 
our lives — once more we are just from home with father's 
counsel still fresh in mind and the impress of mother's 
kiss still lingering upon the cheek. Again the campus 
is touched with the autumn gray, or laden with the win- 
ter's benediction, or green with the promise of coming 
summer — once more the bell in yonder tower is sending 
forth its swift messengers to knock at every student's 
door, and again in reply the boys are passing across the 
campus and hastening up the stairs which lead to that 
unpretentious class-room whose activities have so deeply 
impressed the English speaking world. As the boys 
enter there is all the boisterousness so characteristic of 
under-graduate life, but by the time the seats are 
reached this gives place to a subdued manner, to a lov- 



I04 

ing reverence wliicli grew through all our college days, 
and which the ministry of the passing years has only 
deepened. And what was it that so drew the student to 
Dr. March? There was rare intellectual power. No 
matter what the subject — is the class journeying with 
Chaucer's pilgrims to Canterbury, or studying the won- 
derful creations of Shakespeare, or searching the treas- 
sure fields of Bacon, or following the logic of St. Paul 
in his masterful letter to the Romans — no matter what 
the subject the student saw at a glance in its unfolding 
the hand of one who could well be called Master, and 
who, like Milton, had not come to his work until he was 
fit. In a very suggestive passage in Bunyan's immortal 
work the Pilgrim is placed under the care of one called 
the Interpreter, who makes clear some of the deepest 
mysteries of revelation. To the student Dr. March was 
the interpreter pouring the sunlight of his genius upon 
many a difficult subject which, under such treatment, 
was divested of its obscurities as the mountain peaks are 
unveiled when the morning vapors are dispelled by the 
touch of the rising sun. Thomas Aquinas, because of 
his dullness as a scholar, was known as the Dumb Ox, 
but the patience of a sympathetic teacher made of him 
the Doctor Angelicus of the Medieval Church. And 
while in Dr. March's class-room there always lay in rest 
a lance of the sharpest criticism for the prodigal who 
was wasting his opportunities, there was always the 



I05 

kindliest word for the student who, slow to grasp, was 
plodding his way from day to day and toiling late in the 
night to prepare for the tasks of the morrow. 

Said St. Francis of Assisi to a young monk, *' I^et us 
go down into the town and preach." And so they 
started, traversed street after street, and returned to the 
Monastery without one word being spoken, Then said 
the monk, " Father, when shall we begin to preach?" 
St. Francis replied, ** My child, we have been preach- 
ing by our example." I do not presume that Dr. March 
ever thought so, but each Sabbath morning as he left 
this lovely hill to go down into the town and take his 
place in the I^ord's House, that to the thoughtful under- 
graduate was the best sermon of the Holy Day, and for 
numbers of students, grappling with the specious claims 
of modern skepticism, the christian character of Dr. 
March has been an anchor to the soul amid the storm, 
and one of the greatest evidences for the reality of a 
divine revelation. 

Many of you will recall how Tom Brown came back 
to Rugby after the death of Dr. Arnold and making his 
way to the chapel amid the dim religious light of the 
dying day mourned for the great teacher who had left 
so deep an impress upon his intellectual and religious 
life. In after days, when forms now erect will be bent 
with age, when locks now like the raven's wing for 
blackness will be silvered by the touch of time, many a 



io6 

Tom Brown will come back to this hill, and after revisit- 
ing scenes associated with some of life's deepest cur- 
rents, will make his way to yonder class-room and sit- 
ting in the old familiar seat will call from the past the 
class long since dismissed, while in the empty chair 
memory places the beloved teacher whom to-day we so 
gladly honor. 



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io8 

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66. Furness' New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, Vols. Ill, 
IV., Hamlet. Nation, XXV, 272, Nov. i, 1877. 

67. Shakespeare, from an American point of view, George 
Wilkes. Nation XXV, 291, Nov. 8, 1877. 

68. Dissimilated Gemination. Transactions of American 
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69. Orthography. Cyclopaedia of Education, N. Y., 1877. 

70. Orthography. Year Book of Education, N. Y., 1878. 



Ill 

71. The Condition of Spelling Reform. Transactions of the 
American Institute of Instruction, 1878. 

72. Shakespeare, The Man and the Book, Ingleby. Nation, 
March 21, 1878. 

73. Origin, Progress and Destiny of the English Language and 
Literature, J. A. Weisse. Nation, xxviii, 153, Feb. 28, 1879. 

74. Lafayette College. In College Book, pp. 282-300. Hough- 
ton, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1879. 

75. The State of Spelling Reform in America. Proceedings of 
National Educational Association, 1879. -^Iso Independent, 
Aug. 14, 1879. 

76. Orthography in High Schools. Same. 

77. The New Historical English Dictionary of the Philological 
Society, London. Nation, Sept. 4, 1879, p. 158. 

78. The same. Proceedings of American Philological Asso- 
ciation, 1879. 

79. The same. Same, 1880. 

80. The Point of View in I^in^ Lear. Same, 1880. 

81. Some points in Anglo-Saxon Phonology. Same. 

82. New Types and the New York Observer. Independent, 
Oct. 16, 1879. 

83. An A-B-C Book. Ginn and Heath, Boston, 1880, i2mo. 

84. The Spelling Reform. U. S. Bureau of Education. Cir- 
cular No. 7, 1880. 

85. Spelling. In Appleton^s New American Cyclopaedia, 
1879. 

86. Spelling Reform, etymological and philological view. 
Princeton Review, Jan. 1880, also pamphlet article. No. 19. 

87. Furness' New Variorum Shakespeare, Vol. V. King Lear. 
Nation, xxxi, 327, 1880. 

88. The Englishman and the Scandinavian, Fred. Metcalfe. 
Nation, Nov. 4, 1880. 

89. Rambeau's Chaucer and Dante. Same. 

90. Koch, Ausgewahlte Dichtungen Chancers. Same. 

91. Spelling Reform, progress of. Proceedings of National 
Educational Association, 1880. 

92. The relation of Educators to Spelling Reform. Same. 



93' The Buildings and Apparatus of a Modern College. An 
Address at the reopening of Pardee Hall. Easton, 1880. 

94. Recent Philological Works. North American, Jan., 1881. 

95. Sayce's Principles of Comparative Philology. American 
Church Review, April, 1881. 

96. Faust, from the German of Chamisso, H. Phillips. Nation, 
March 10, 1881. 

97. Syllabus of Anglo-Saxon Iviterature. Hart, from Ten 
Brink. Independent, March 17. 

98. Anglo-Saxon Metaphor, Gummere. Nation, April 14, 1881. 

99. Horstmann's altenglische Legenden. Same, April 7, 1881. 

100. Worcester's Dictionary, new edition. The American. 
Phila., April, 1881. 

loi. Professor H. B. Smith in Amhferst College, In his "lyife 
and Work," by his wife. New York, 1881. 

102. The New Spellings of the Philological Society, London. 
Transactions of the Am,erican Philological Association, 1881, 
p. 52. Proceedings of Same, p. 25. 

103. A Confession about Othello. Sam,e, p. 31. 

104. Macbeth, Darmesteter's ed. Nation, Nov. i, 1881. 

105. Walt Whitman, Independent, Dec, 1881. 

106. Noah Webster : in American Men of Letters, Horace B. 
Scudder. Nation, May 25, 1882. 

107. Etymological Dictionary of the Knglish Language, 
W. W. Skeat. Independent, July 27, 1882. 

108. Aryo-Semitic speech, J. F. McCurdy. American Church 
Review, July, 1882. 

109. The World of Beowulf. Proceedings of American Philo- 
logical Association, xiii, 21, 1882. 

no. The locutions two first and first two. Same, 30. 

111. Surds and Sonants. Same, 33. 

112. The Harmonies of Verse. Same, xiv, II, 1883. 

113. The Personal Element in Dactylic Hexameters. Same, 
xiv, 26. 

114. Hamlet's "dramofeale.*^ Same, 24. 

115. Contested Etymologies in English, Wedgwood. Nation, 
March 29, 1883. 



"3 

ii6. Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Toller-Boswortli. 6aw^, April 5. 

117. Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer. Same, May, 1883. 

118. Morris' Specimens of Early English. Same, May 10. 

119. The Imperial Dictionary. Ogilby. Independeni, April 
17, 1884. 

120. The Influence of "Written English and Linguistic author- 
ities on Spoken English. Proceedings of American Philologi- 
cal Ass., xv,35, 1884. 

121. Caedmon, Hunt's Edition. Presbyterian Review, January, 



122. Beowulf. Independent, May 8, 1884. 

123. The Teachers of Leicester Academy. An address at the 
Centennial celebration. Memorial Volume, Worcester, 1884. 

124. Folk Etymology, Palmer's Dictionary of Verbal Corrup- 
tions, etc. Nation, Jan. 8, 1885. 

125. Tyndale, Verbatim reprint of the Pentateuch of 1530. 
Edited by Mombert, N. Y. Same, April 9, 1885. 

126. Quantity in English Verse. Proceedings of the Am. 
Philol. Ass., xvi, 8, 1885. 

127. The Neogrammarians. Same, 19. 

128. English Dictionaries, Stormonth. American Church Re- 
view, April, 1885 ; and Independent, April 9. 

129. Beauty and the Beast. Independent, Nov. 26, 1885. 

130. Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Harrison & Baskerville. Na- 
tion, Dec. 17, 1885. 

131. List of Amended Spellings, recommended by the Philo- 
logical Society, of London, and the American Philological Asso- 
ciation. Transactions of the Am. Philol. Ass., Vol. XVII, 127, 
1886. 

132. Consonant notation and vowel definition. Proceedings of 
Same, XVII, 30, 1886. 

133. Once-used words in Shakespeare. Same. 

134. Phonetic change, the inviolability of phonetic law. 
Same, 36. 

135. Ten Years of Spelling Reform. President's address at 
the decennial meeting of the Spelling Reform Association at 
Cornell University, July, 1886. Spelling Ref. Bulletin, 1886. 



114 

136. The New English. T. h. Kington Oliphant. Nation, 
March 17, 1887. 

137. Victor's Blemente der Phonetik und Orthoepie des 
Deutschen, Bnglischen und Franzosischen. Nation, March 31, 
1887. 

138. Starck, Grammar and Language. Same, April, 1887. 

139. Spelling Reform. The Chautauquan, June, 1887. 

140. Greek Letters and Letters Literary. At the semi-centen- 
nial celebration of Amherst A A $. Memorial Volume, N. Y., 
1887. 

141. New Historical English Dictionary. Murray, Part 3. 
Nation, Sept. i, 1887. 

142. Parts 2, 3. Independent, Oct. 23, 1887. 

143. Standard English. Proceedings of Am. Philol. Ass., 
xviii, 10, 1887. 

144. The Science of Thought. Max Miiller. Presbyterian Re- 
view, April, 1888, p. 341. 

145. Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Part 3. Toller-Bosworth. Na- 
tion, 1888. 

146. The Growth of Lafayette. An address before the Phila. 
Alumni Association of Lafayette College, March i, 1888. 

147. Geo. P. Marsh. Life and Letters, Vol. I. Nation xlvii, 
213, 1888, Sept. 13. 

148. A Universal Language. Forum, June, 1888. 

149. Standard English, its pronunciation how learned. 
Transactions of the Am. Philol. Ass., XIX, 20, 1888. Proceed- 
ings, 19, 16. 

150. Volapiik and the law of least effort. Same, 19, 18. 

151. A reign of Law in Spelling. Forum, December, 1888. 

152. The Century Dictionary, vol. I, Section 5. Nation, May 
30, 1889. 

153. The Same. Independent, August 29, 1889. 

154. Le Morte Darthur, Malory, Part I. Nation, Jan. 2, 1890. 
Part II, Sept., 1890, Part HI, Jan., 1891. 

155. Viking Age, Du Chaillu. Epoch, N. Y., Dec, 1889. 

156. The Meter of Milton's Paradise Lost. Proceedings of the 
Am. Philol. Ass., XX, 13, 1889. 



IIS 

157. The Study of Knglish in preparation for College. Same, 
36. 

158. Preface to Balg's Comparative Glossary of tlie Gothic 
lyanguage. Mayville, 1889. 

159. Robert Browning. Independent, Jan. 2, 1890. 

160. New Historical Knglish Dictionary, Murray, Part V. 
Presbyterian Review, April, 1890. 

161. The same. Nation, June 5, 1890. 

162. The same. Independent, June 19, 1890. 

163. The Ancient Classical Drama, as a study for readers in 
English, R. G. Moulton. Independent, April 10, 1890. 

164. Studies in the Vocabularies of the Knglish Classics. Pro- 
ceedings of the Am. Philol. Asso., 1890. 

165. Le Morte Darthur, Caxton, ed., H. O. Sommer, Part II. 
Nation, Sept. 4, 1890. 

166. The Study of Knglish required for admission to College. 
Proceedings of the College Asso. of the Middle States and Mary- 
land, Nov. 1890. 

167. Furness' New Variorum Shakespeare, Vol. 8. As You 
lyike It. Nation, March 5, 1891, p. 202. 

168. The Needs of Lafayette. An address before the Philadel- 
phia Association of Alumni of Lafayette College, March 5, 1891. 

169. Sweet's System of Phonetics. Sunday School Times, 
April 4, 1891. 

170. Principles of English Ktymology, Skeat. Nation, April 
16, 1891. 

171. The International Webster. Educational Review, 1^91. 

172. Laws of Language, with a word on Verner's Law. Pro- 
ceedings of Am. Philol Asso., p. 50, 1891. 

173. New Dictionaries. Appleton's Year Book, 1892. 

174. Le Morte Darthur, Part III. Nation, January, 1892. 

175. New Historical Knglish Dictionary, Murray, Vol. II, Pai^ 
VI, and Bradley, Vol. Ill, Part I. Independent, April 14, 1892. 

176. Ethical Teachings in old Knglish Literature, Hunt, 
Same, May 12, 1892. 

177. Furness' Variorum Shakespeare, Vol. 9. The Tempest. 
Nation, August 11, 1892, p. 112. 



ii6 

178. The Study of English. Independent, Aug. 4, 1892. Re- 
printed by Prof. Cook of Yale. 

179. The Pronunciation of Scientific terms in English. Pro- 
ceedings of the Am. PhiloL Asso., 1892. 

180. The Relation of the Study of English I^iterature to Aes- 
thetics. Proceedings of the College Association of the Middle 
States and Maryland, 1892. 

181. Recollections of Language Teaching. President's Ad- 
dress of the Modern Language Association of America, Wash- 
ington, D. C, Dec. 29, 1892. Proceedings of the Association. 

182-3. ^^^ Greek Elements of English. Chautauquan, Jan. 
and Feb., 1893. 

184. A Universal Language. Proceedings of the Modern Lan- 
guage Association of America, Chicago, 1893. 

185. Outline of the Action of the American Philological Asso- 
ciation on Spelling Reform. Proceedings of the Asso., Chicago, 
1893. 

186. The Spelling Reform. U. S- Bureau of Education, Cir- 
cular of Information, No. 8, 1893. A revision and enlargement 
of circular No. 7, 1880. 

187. Is Simplified Spelling feasible as proposed by the English 
and American Philological Societies? The Opening Address of 
a symposium of the Anthropological Society of Washington, 
D.C., December 20, 1892. The American Anthropologist, April, 
1893. 

188. English in Lafayette College. Dial, Chicago, May, 1894. 
Reprinted in " English in American Universities." D. C. Heath 
& Co., Boston, 1895. 

189. Time and Space in Word Concepts. Proceedings of the 
Am. Philol. Asso., July, 1894. 

190. The Eye and Ear in learning to read. Same. 

191. Whitney's influence on the study of Modern Languages 
and on Lexicography. An address at a Memorial Meeting of the 
Linguistic and Archaeological Societies of America in honor of 
Wii.i,iAM DwiGHT Whitney, Philadelphia, Dec. 28, 1894. 

192. A Standard Dictionary, the pronunciation, etc. Funk & 
Wa^nalls Co., N. Y., 1894. 



117 

I93> The Scientific Alphabet. New letters vs. diacritics. Lan- 
guages, London, Feb., 1895. 

194. The same. New England Journal of Education^ July 25, 

1895. 

195. The Shakespearian Fluency. Transactions of the Am. 
Philol. Ass., 1895. 

DEDICATIONS. 

I. Beowulf; ^popde anglo-saxonne. Analyse historique et 
g^ographique. Par Iv. Botkink, Havre, 1876. Inscribed to Fean- 
CiS A. March, Esq., Professor, etc. 

The first Beowulf publication in French. 

II. Beowulf : an Anglo-Saxon poem. II. The Fight at Finns- 
burg : a fragment. With text and glossary on the basis of M. 
Heyne, edited, corrected and enlarged by J AMES A. Harrison, 
Prof, in Washington and Lee University, and Robert Sharp, 
Prof, in the University of Louisiana, Boston, 1885. 

" Dedicated to Professor F. A. March" etc., '* and Freder- 
ick J. FuRNiVAi^i, KsQ., etc. 

III. Judith, an old Knglish epic fragment edited, with intro- 
duction, translation, complete glossary, and various indexes by 
A1.BERT S. Cook, Ph.D. (Jena), Professor in the University of 
California. Boston, 1888. 

"To Francis A. March, the lover of English Speech and 
the ever-helpful friend." 

IV. Ethical Teachings in Old English Literature. By Theo- 
dore W. Hunt, Ph.D., Litt. D., Professor of English in the 
College of New Jersey, author of, etc. New York, 1892. 

" To Professor Francis A. March, D.D., the generous helper 
of all Old English Students." 

V. Der althochdeutsche Isidor. Facsimile-ausgabe des Pari- 
ser Codex nebst critischem Texte der Pariser und Monseer 
Bruchstiicke. Mit Einleitung, grammatischer Darstellung, und 
einem ausfiihrlichen Glossar herausgegeben von GEORGE A. 
Hench. Mit 22 Tafeln. Strassburg, 1893. 

** Meinem verehrten Lehrer Francis A. March gewidmet." 

VI. Five thousand Words often Misspelled. A carefully se- 



ii8 

lected list with directions, etc., with an appendix of amended 
spellings recommended by the Philological Society (of London) 
and the Am. Philol. Asso., by Wm. Henry P. Phyfe, author, 
etc. New York, 1894. 

** To Francis A. March," etc., ** respectfully dedicated as a 
token of the author's admiration not only for his distinguished 
labors in linguistic science, but also for his eminent services in 
the cause of spelling reform." 



ANGLO-SAXON TEXT-BOOKS. 

NOTICES. 
We heartily join with the author of this volume in giving 
** thinks to the Trustees and Faculty of Lafayette College, who 
were the first to unite in one professorship the study of the 
English Language and Comparative Philology, and who have 
set apart time for these studies, and funds for the necessary 
apparatus to pursue them." This work and the author's ad- 
mirable essay on the ** Method of Philological Study of the 
English Language" are abundant evidence of the ability and 
industry with which Mr. March has performed the duties of his 
professorship.*-iVi?z£; York TinteSy Nov. 20, i8yo. 

We may point to it with pride as a credit to American Philol- 
ogy. There is no part of it, from the Introduction to the In- 
dexes, which does not bear witness both of profound and pene- 
trating research and of indefatigable industry. The reader is- a 
worthy companion-book to the grammar. Prof. W. D. Whit- 
ney in the North American Review, April, i8yi. 

I suppose Professor March, whose grammar is the only scien- 
tific grammar of any extent, must have some good scholars. 

Prof. F. J. Chii,d, 
Of Harvard University, to the U. S. 'Bureau of 
Education, Dec. 8, 1875. 

The advance Mr. March has made on his English predeces- 



119 

sors is especially shown in tlie^tliorougli way in wliicli the pho- 
netic laws are treated. The syntax is perhaps the most original 
and at the same time the most valuable part of Mr. March's 
work. The book can be unhesitatingly recommended to all 
English readers, who wish to acquire a sound and intelligent 
knowledge of Anglo-Saxon. Henry Sweet, 

In the Academy, (I^ondon) Oct. 22, 1870. 
It is not too much to say that the man who shall henceforth 
undertake any work upon the English tongue, without having 
always before him the grammatical works of Dr. Morris and Dr. 
March, must be]the greatest of fools. 

T. L. Kington Oi^iphant, 
Of Balliol College, Oxford, in the preface of his work on 
The Sources of Standard English, London, 1873. 

Dr. March's interesting " Method of Philological study of the 
English lyanguage" is well worth the attention of teachers. He 
has just published an ** Anglo-Saxon Grammar," which appears 
to be far superior to any other that has yet appeared. — Tne Brit- 
ish Quarterly Review, Oct., 1870. 

In the department of grammar, it is pleasant to think that we 
at last have a book in English which is really up to the mark of 
modern philology — the Anglo-Saxon Grammar of Professor 
March. The merits of Professor March's grammar are too well 
known to require any further statement ; we can only say that 
the work is a credit to American philology, and ought to be in 
the hands of every student of English. 

Transactions] of the Philological Society, (London). The 
annual address for 1874, of the President, 

A. J. Ei<i.is, Esq. 

America |has^r possessed and still possesses, some excellent 
scholars, whom every one of ^these German and French savants 
would be proud to acknowledge as his peers. * * * * Pro- 
fessor March's Anglo-Saxon Grammar has been praised by 
everybody. Prof. F. Max Mui,i,er, 

In his Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. IV, p. 431. 



Two admirable works — ** An Anglo-Saxon Grammar" and 
" Anglo-Saxon Reader," by ProfessonMarch, of Lafayette Col- 
lege — show tbat the studies of a philological character carried 
on at a comparatively small American institution are not sur- 
passed in thoroughness by those we are accustomed to associate 
with the German Universities. * ♦ * Professor March has 
produced an invaluable work for the comparative philologist. — 
The Athenaeum, (London), Jan. 7, 1871, (second notice). 

In England hat in neuester Zeit ein junger Gelehrter, Henry 
Sweet, viel Beachtenswerthes fiir die angelsachsischen Dialekte 
gegeben. In America betreibt man das Studium des Angel- 
sachsischen recht eifrig, und eine Frucht dieses Fleisses ist 
vorliegende Grammatik. March beschranct sich darin nicht 
nur auf das Angelsachsische, sondern geht auf die verwandten 
Dialekte und sogar bis zum Sanskrit zuriick. Am wohlgelung- 
ensten ist entschieden der dritte Theil, welcher die noch so 
wenig behandelte Syntax zum Gegenstande hat. Hier bringt 
March viel neues und alles ist recht iibersichtlich dargestellt. 

Richard Wui^cker, 

In Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie. Halle, 1873, 5,2. 
Der Verfasser des vorliegenden Buches geht in dankenswerther 
Weise iiber das padagogische Ziel hinaus, indem er weitreichende 
und von grosser Belesenheit in angelsachsischen Quellen 
gestiitzte eigene Forschungen in der Laut- und Formenlehre, vor- 
nehmlich aber in der Syntax, vortragt. So fordert er iiber das 
blosse Zusammenfassen der bisher gewonnenen Resultate auch 
an seinem Theile die tiefere Kenntniss der angelsachsischen und 
der allgemein deutschen Grammatik. MoRiTz Heyne, 

In Kuhn's Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Sprachforschung . 
Berlin, 1872, 1,1. 



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